


Mystery Twins

by Coniferoussiblings



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Monsters, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest, pinecest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coniferoussiblings/pseuds/Coniferoussiblings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic with an older pair of Pine Twins (just graduated from High School) deciding to take a last summer trip to Gravity Falls together before they have to head off to college. Along the way they discover a few things about themselves that they hadn't known.</p><p>Fair warning, this is the first story I wrote so its a bit rough around the edges in parts. I also wrote the bulk of it back in 2013, when the first season of the show had barely ended so it diverges pretty widely from the main show continuity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

_June 4th_

“Mabel, have you _finally_ finished packing?” Dipper called from across the hall, only a slight note of irritation in his voice.

“Almost bro – what do you think will come more in handy: that weird bracelet-thingy that we found that lets you talk to plants, or the growy-shrinky crystal?” she called back at him.

“None of the plants we talked to had anything useful to say… they just kept going on and on about rainfall patterns and carpenter ants – I’d go for the crystal.”

“I dunno, I thought that one squash gave some pretty good advice but I guess you’re right. Alright, just have to crush… this …down!” she paused, grunting with effort as she compressed the massively overstuffed suitcase resting on her bed shut and barely managed to slip the worn metal latch in place before slumping off with a sigh. “All done!”

“Jeez Mabel, sure you haven’t forgotten anything?” Dipper asked sarcastically as he looked in from the doorway, his faded blue pine-tree hat already on his head and a heavy backpack slung across one shoulder.

Time had been kind to the Pine twins, now fresh out of highschool. Dipper had shot up until he was a half a head taller than his sister, and while he wasn’t exactly a bodybuilder he had filled out beyond the noodly arms of his pre-teen self. He’d even taken to trying to grow a goatee, though he still couldn’t manage more than a small patch of scruff on his pointed chin. Mabel meanwhile, had a straight white smile beaming from her face in place of her old braces in addition to her fuller figure – she had had more guys lining up to ask her out in high-school than she could have ever imagined when she was younger, though most of her relationships didn’t survive very long due to her… intensity.

“Oh, so Mr. 37 point plan is criticizing me for being over-prepared?” she retorted with a smile as she sat back down on her bed, resting her arm on the bulging suitcase, causing it to creak slightly from stress.

“I… have nothing to respond to that with actually.” Dipper said as he set his bag against the door frame and sat down next to his sister, catching a glimpse of their reflections in the large round mirror across from the bed. So alike and yet so different – the harsher angles of his face with its heavier brow and sharp cheekbones contrasted against his twins oval face and soft lips. Their eyes though were almost completely identical, a deep warm brown the color of polished wood. _We’ve been growing apart for a while now,_ he thought, _and not just in appearance.I guess thats partly why I’ve been looking forward to this trip for so long._

“You think grunkle Stan will be surprised to see us?” Mabel asked to break the slightly awkward pause.

Dipper shrugged, “If anything can still surprise him after living in that town for so long then I guess he will be. Pleasantly surprised though, I hope.”

“Its going to be great to see everyone again! I hope they haven’t forgotten about us… we did have to stay home for the summer last year after all.”

“Pretty sure no one would blame us not taking a vacation to visit them when we spent the summer recovering from a car accident. Anyway you’ve been Skype-ing with Candy and Grenda all through the school year, so I’m pretty sure that your best friends still remember you.”

“Good point” Mabel said.

“It’s going to be good to head up and see Gravity Falls again. Might be the last time we get to see it for a while what with, y'know, college and all.” his voice dropped slightly at the end.

“Yeah.” Mabel shuffled her feet awkwardly on the thick turquoise carpet, “Do you ever get kind of freaked out about that Dip? College I mean.”

“Sometimes. Especially since we got accepted at different places. I mean, at least they are both in the same state but still, it would be… I dunno, the first time that we’re going to be really apart.”

“Well the drives only a few hours, so its not like we won’t ever see each other.” she said, but there was a note of resignation in her voice. _But we won’t see each other for a while and there isn’t any avoiding that._

A small cloud hung over the room before Dipper broke the silence with a sharp slap on his knee and he said with slightly forced gaiety, “Well that’s why this trip is so important after all! We’ve been saving up for this all year now… our last big adventure before we have to grow up. Lets make the most of it!”

Mabel beamed back at him, “You’re right Dipper! No more moping – lets go out there and kick this summers butt!” She brought her own hand down sharply on the suitcase, mirroring his gesture. Unfortunately this caused the overstuffed bag to burst open, fountaining out colorful sweaters and all manner of strange trinkets across the room.

“Right after we help you re-pack that is.” Dipper said as thick knitted sweaters settled over him like a sudden flurry of snow.


	2. Chapter 1

_June 5th_

A somewhat dented-up blue sedan trundled along the empty stretch of tree-lined highway, its frame shaking and shuddering slightly despite the fact that the road was smooth as glass from the lack of traffic. Dipper would be the first to admit that his beat up old car probably wasn’t the best machine on the road, but he had an affection for it since he’d saved up the money from his part time jobs to buy it himself. At least the CD player worked well enough, and his fingers beat a tune on the steering wheel as he hummed along with the singer belting out her tune in heavily accented English from the speaker.

“C'mon Dip, its been 3 hours – do you have anything other than Babba in this car?” Mabel groaned from the passengers seat.

“Hey, you know the rules we agreed on when we set out yesterday – the person driving gets to pick the radio station or CD. I had to sit through your endless collection of 80’s music last night and you didn’t hear me complaining.”

“You’re complaining right now,” she teased sticking her tongue out, “and anyway you should be thankful to have your mind broadened with some real classical art for once.”

“At least you grew out of your boy band phase years ago. I think if I had to listen to any of your old Sevr'l Timez albums I might have just shot myself before my brain melted.” They both had a laugh, and Dipper reached down and changed the radio station without a word. Mabel gave him a small smile of thanks at the gesture.

“It’s so weird to think about how time passes. Do you remember when we first came up here when we were in Middle School? That was one of the best summers of my life!” she exclaimed with one of her characteristic bursts of excitement.

“I know, right? The mystery! The adventures. All the people we met.” he felt his heart race slightly, _and of course all the danger, the fear and the weirdness, but lets ignore that for now._

“Especially Wendy, am I right?” Mabel chirped as she nudged him in the ribs and waggled her eyebrows exaggeratedly.

Dipper blushed, “She was cool, yeah.”

“You had the hugest crush on her! Oh man, can you imagine how awkward it was for her to have some preteen nerd sighing after her all summer?” she laughed, “Such a dork!”

“Hey, I got over my dorkishness.” he muttered defensively.

“Sure thing bro-bro, you were a big hit with the ladies of science club back home.” Mabel teased. She always knew how to get under his skin better than anyone.

“No teasing me about my love life sis- you dated outside the species once.” Dipper replied playfully, but with a slight edge.

“What?” she asked, perplexed.

“That mermaid guy, remember?”

“Oh c'mon, that was a summer crush 6 years ago!”,

“If Wendy still counts as teasing material so does he. At least we were still kids then so nothing went too far – can you imagine trying to get frisky with a fishman?”

“Ew! Gross Dip!” Mabel snorted.

“Seriously though, how would that even work? I didn’t notice any kind of mer-junk… do you think it was retractable or something?”

“Ok, you’ve already put way too much thought into this so we’re cutting this line of discussion off right now”

“Fair enough, let us never speak of this again.” Dipper said dryly. This is what he’d been missing after highschool had split them up with its cliques, clubs and separate classes. He missed the closeness, the banter and knowing that there was someone who always had his back around.

 _Kind of a shame to get it back right before I’m going to lose it again though,_ he thought gloomily to himself as the radio belted out a commercial for a local car dealership that apparently had “Dynamite Deals Deals Deals!”

“Hey, Mabel – you mind if we pull over at this next rest stop? I need to stretch my legs before my foot becomes permanently grafted to the gas pedal.”

“Sure thing, but when we do I’m taking the next turn driving. I still have 3 whole albums of mind-expanding music to educate you with.” Though his eyes were on the road Dipper could hear the wide grin just from her tone of voice.

“This is payback for the mer-junk crack isn’t it?” he joked.

“If you choose to see it that way, its up to you.” she replied haughtily.

* * *

The rest stop was fairly well maintained and just as empty as the main road had been earlier when they had been driving along. Dipper lay stretched out on a bench with his cap pulled down over his eyes and sighed deeply in contentment. The birds sang, the wind blew serenely through the high tree tops and best of all Mabel couldn’t find those other 3 albums that she swore she had packed the night before. Dipper may, or may not, have kicked them under her bed when they had worked together recovering and re-packing her possessions from the exploded suitcase but she wouldn’t be hearing it from him and the chirping birds were quite silent on the subject of musical sabotage.

 _Probably for the best that we didn’t bring them anyway,_ he thought to himself to justify his admittedly dickish action, _she was already bringing enough stuff to break a donkeys back without adding the extra weight._

Over the years the twins had accumulated a very impressive collection of odd and vaguely occult junk, and while he had been hesitant at first about its use he had grown more comfortable with these little trinkets and artifacts over time. The Presidents key that hung on a chain around his neck had gotten him out of more than one tight spot and he knew that Mabel kept her grappling hook with her at all times, even finding ways to sneak it into school and once (to his impressed horror) past airport security. This summer they didn’t want to take any chances and took along as much as they could in case Gravity Falls trademark blend of small town oddness and actual supernatural activity started to drag them in again.

Mabel plopped down on the bench beside him and said “Suspiciously it seems that my albums have either grown wings and flown off at some point in the night or, more likely, been hidden by some jerkwad. Do you think this is a case for the Mystery Twins, or would you want to just confess right now?”

“I plead the fifth,” Dipper replied.

“I did find this though while digging through the bag… I was going to give it to you after we were done with the trip. You know, before we left back home to get to school… but I think I want you to have it now.” Mabel handed him a thick rectangular bundle wrapped up in butcher paper and twine.

Dipper sat up and peeled off the packaging to reveal a book with a reddish faux-leather cover and a strange six-fingered hand painted on the cover in thick gold ink – the number 4 stood out stark black in the center of its palm. Dipper turned to her excitedly, “Mabel, where did you get this!”

“I made it you dork!” she snorted, “Open it up and check it out.”

Confused, Dipper cracked open the pages to reveal various photos and newspaper clippings pasted into the page, along with Mabels careful but oddly stylized pen and ink drawings and odd objects such as strange scales, pressed flowers and what Dipper was sure was gnome beard hair. “You made this?”

“Yeah. I know how much this mystery stuff means to you so I’ve been saving little mementos from our trips. I thought you’d like having your own journal to work on… I left the back half blank so you can put your future exploits down.”

Dipper ran his fingers over the thick pages and turned to his sister, a soft smile on his face. “Thank you Mabel… I… this is just an amazing gift.”

“Well you know, I’m great so of course my gifts would be amazing,” she said jokingly. “Anyway I realized it would make more sense to give it to you now before we arrived at Weirdsville, USA just in case you found something worth putting into the book.”

“Knowing Gravity Falls I might get it filled up in the first week.”

* * *

The twins arrived, sleepily, at a small town near the Oregon border around midnight, both extremely tired from a long day of driving and desperate for a place to sleep. Fortunately the area was on a more well traveled stretch of road and had a few small motels in the area with cheap, if not overly comfortable, rooms and they were able to get themselves tucked away without any trouble.

As they settled in for the night into the twin beds with their somewhat scratchy lime green sheets they heard the soft fall of rain coming down outside and pattering against the dusty window of the room like soothing music, but Mabel found herself unable to sleep. Her brothers slow, even breathing from the bed next to hers was causing her to drift into memories of those long summers in the attic of the Mystery Shack… it had been years since they shared a room at home, ever since puberty with all its disruptions had come on full force and their parents had decided to clear out her fathers old den to turn into Dippers new room. Those first few nights had been the hardest, she had slept with those same familiar grumbles and breathing all her life and the silence had been deafening. Hearing it again, now that she had grown used to sleeping alone, was jarring. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that sound.

She thought back on the ride up and the hours that they had spent joking, reminiscing and just generally bantering back and forth in the car and realized with a start that this was the most time that she’d spent with Dipper in almost a year. It had been so _fun_ … why had they ever stopped hanging out like this? What had started to drag them apart? Was this how it was going to be from now on? She’d been overjoyed to see the look on his face earlier when he had unwrapped the scrapbook/journal that she’d given him, but now the thought of him taking to book off to college while she went to art school on the opposite side of the state just made her heart ache.

“Hey… Dip…” she whispered quietly.. “Dipper…DIPPER!” she finished, not quite as quietly.

“Huh.. who… whuzza?” he grumbled blearily.

“Oh, good… you’re awake.” she whispered, back at her original volume.

“I guess I am.” he groaned quietly.

“I was just thinking -” _How do I put this into words? How do you tell your brother you are afraid of losing him without sounding pathetic or creepy?_ She gave up and just hastily blurted out “I was wondering…um… what are you going to do after college?”

“This is what you wake me up for?” he grumbled. “I dunno… I was thinking of maybe going into journalism.”

“Journalism? Like a reporter or something?” she said.

“Yeah. I guess it just seems like a good idea. Its solid work and I think I’m not bad at investigating.”

“You investigate weird stuff though… can you imagine trying to turn in a story about Gnome migrations to the New York Times?”

“Gnomes are real though!”

“Well yeah, we both know that – but anyone back home we tried to tell about our adventures thought we were nuts. We had to change schools after all the fights you got into from idiots picking on you.”

“I remember, I was there. Glad that Stan had given me a few of his old boxing tips, otherwise it might have gone a lot worse for me. Anyway those were just dumb kids though, I’m sure that rational adults will be able to accept… gnomes? Crap. I don’t know, with some video evidence maybe… but then everyone would say it was faked… Oh god, I’m going to end up like that guy with the weird hair on the History channel aren’t I?” he said, with a note of panic in his voice.

“It’s a possibility.” she replied wryly.

“Well ok… maybe I don’t know what I want yet. I’m 18, its not a crime to not have your whole life planned out at this point. What about you? What do you want to do when you get out of art school?”

“Thats the thing Dipper – I don’t have a plan. I’m mostly just going because I like doing arts and crafts… but I don’t think its something you do for a living.

"Are you kidding? Mabel you are ridiculously talented – you made a life size replica of Stan out of wax when you were 12! You have the chops to be a serious artist if you put your mind to it.”

“What if I don’t want to put my mind to it though? I love drawing and sculpting and stuff… but they are just hobbies to me. Fun stuff to do. I don’t see myself going around wearing a beret at art shows talking about what my stuff ‘means’. I’d feel like a huge poser.”

“Well, there’s all sorts of stuff you can do with art… you could do movie special effects or advertising… maybe even make a cartoon - you used to watch a lot of them.”

“Heh, yeah- I loved those old Disney cartoons! The Warner Brothers ones were funnier though.” she said.

Thunder rumbled ominously outside.

“Anyway, why all this talk about the future?” Dipper asked with a yawn.

“Because I’m worried about us.” she said quietly.

“I think we’ll do ok, we’re pretty smart and I think we can get by.”

“I don’t mean that I’m worried about me. I’m worried about _us_ , you know – the two of us. I start thinking of the fact that we’ll both be moving out and not sharing a roof for the first time in our whole lives and I start freaking out.” she said with a catch in her voice “Does that make me weird? Is this weird to hear?”

Dipper was silent for a moment before replying, “I don’t think you’re weird. Silly yes, but not weird.” he sighed “The truth is I’ve been thinking the same thing. Everyone is always going on about growing up and what it means. Growing up is leaving the house, leaving your family and then finding something that pays money and doing it for the rest of your life.”

“Growing up is a butt.” Mabel said with a pout

“Well why does it have to be?” he said forcefully, “Why do I have to cut all my ties and just become this whole different person to be considered an adult? Why should I have to lose my best friend?”

“I’m your best friend?” she asked quietly.

“Um… yeah.” he said sheepishly. “I don’t care if its lame or whatever but I’ve always thought of you as my friend, not just my family. Like even if we weren’t related I’d have wanted to hang out with you like we used to. I don’t know… I feel like we’ve been drifting lately – there’s a lot I don’t know about you now and it makes me kind of sad. I mean, I guess it makes sense that we’d tend to stick with friends more than family as we grew older… but I’d always thought of you as my best friend, not just my sister.”

“I was thinking that earlier too… about how I miss our closeness. Thats the real reason I woke you up actually… just seeing you flip through the journal, and all those pictures of us together on our summers. It made me realize that I don’t want this to be our last summer either. I don’t want to lose you Dipper.” her voice cracked with emotion and she held back a sniffle.

“I don’t want to lose you either… I don’t want this completely amazing person who I’ve spent my whole life with to just become someone that I see on Christmas and Thanksgiving get-togethers. I don’t want the only person who really, really understands me to become a stranger.”

“Well… what can we do?” she asked after several moments of near silence, broken only by the rain growing more intense outside their window.

“I don’t know yet… but I do know that I’m going to come up with something. To tell you the truth I was just getting kind of resigned to the idea that this inevitable… but knowing that you feel this way too… I don’t know, it makes me think that we can do something about it.”

“Me too.”

“We have some more time before we make it to Gravity Falls… I’m sure I’ll have a foolproof plan by then. For now though lets get some sleep – I don’t want to pass out on the road tomorrow.”

“Ok. G'night Dipper.” she whispered, and added quietly, “Love you bro.”

As she settled in to her pillow she heard a faint whisper in return, “Love you too sis.”


	3. Chapter 2

_June 6_ _th_

The day dawned crisp and unseasonably cool after the heavy rains last night, but the Pine twins weren’t able to witness its golden-pink splendor because they slept right through it. They had been so tired from yesterdays driving and their fitful night that they didn’t actually awaken until they heard the maid pounding on the door saying that checkout time was coming up in 10 minutes unless they felt like paying for an extra day. Dipper and Mabel quickly dressed, unfortunately missing out on the chance for a morning shower, and found themselves driving into the heart of the small town looking for breakfast. They had both had enough of the trail mix that Dipper had packed on the road yesterday to last them for quite a while and needed something more filling if they were to spend another day driving up through the long twisted back-roads that lead to their great-uncles home up in Gravity Falls. Mabel spotted a small diner that looked like it had fallen right out of the Fifties and practically yanked Dippers arms from the steering wheel to pull them into the parking lot.

The interior was an odd mixture of modern and old fixtures, with a brand new LCD television on a bracket above the lunch counter, but with an abundance of old fashioned neon lights and chromed swivel chairs that were some old time architects idea of what the future would look like. The few locals inside turned curiously when they saw the twins come in through the door but soon turned back to their breakfasts and conversations. The large balding man behind the counter took their order with a grunt and left them at the counter with two mugs of scalding hot black coffee.

“I don’t know why you always want to stop at these kinds of places Mabel.” Dipper groused quietly as he sipped the bitter coffee, which tasted like it had been stewing all night.

“For the atmosphere! Not to mention the suspense.”

“The suspense?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“Yeah, you could eat at a McDonalds anywhere and always know what you are going to get and how it tastes, but when you stop somewhere like this you never know what to expect.” she said perkily as she sipped her coffee, cringing faintly at the taste.

“That’s true. I, for one, didn’t actually know it was possible to make coffee out of battery acid.” he said, whispering the last part quietly as she stifled a giggle.

“C'mon, its not that bad you baby…” she took a longer sip and shuddered, “ugh.. battery acid and cat pee more like. Maybe some sugar will help?”

Dipper smiled as he watched his sister screw off the top of the sugar shaker and pour a very generous heap directly into the mug as she stirred it slowly with a look of concentration not unlike some mad old alchemist working on a potion. She’d always had an iron stomach, and enough optimism about the limits of what could be considered edible to need it. When she started coughing and spluttering from her first careful sip of the new mixture he hastily turned up at the television to avoid the sight of Mabel scrubbing her tongue against the sleeve of her poofy fuchsia sweater.

The program appeared to be the local news station, with a plump reporter with an obvious comb-over standing in a field surveying the damage caused by the storm the night before (which Dipper personally had thought of as more of an enthusiastic drizzle, but figured that in a town this small that they were desperate for news to fill the airtime). The volume was turned too low to really hear anything that was being said, but he saw the reporter was interviewing a rail thin white haired old man who looked like he could have been the long lost brother of old man McGuckett. He seemed wild eyed appeared to be talking excitedly, and the screen text revealed him to be Jeddidiah Stevens, local farmer. Stevens was making wide and frantic arm gestures and pointing to a spot on the roof of his faded sky blue ranch house where the wind appeared to have torn off quite a few of the roof tiles. Dipper was about to turn away when he noticed the scrolling news banner which now appeared along the bottom of the screen didn’t mention storm damage, but instead said “Mysterious Attack from Above?”. Intrigued, he watched as the focus of the screen shifted to a large indentation on the ground at the reporters feet. The camera zoomed in blurredly as the reporter knelt in the mud, placing a chubby hand beside the large depression and as the focus cleared Dipper realized it was a foot print. A very large and _very_ strange three toed foot print. Dipper excitedly nudged his sister and she looked up from her current coffee improving experiment (adding cherry flavored gummy koalas to the brew) and followed his eyes to the screen.

“What do you think it is?” she whispered to him, “Bigfoot? Dinosaur? UFO?”

“Mabel, how could a UFO leave a footprint?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, you’re the conspiracy expert – not me!” she said with a quick smile.

“Well whatever left it didn’t leave it too far from here, I recognize some of those hills that are in the background as ones that we passed by on the way up here and I swear that I saw a blue building in the distance near one… would you want to go check it out?”

“What about your super anal-retentive driving schedule?”

“I think since its a surprise visit that Stan wont mind if we are a few hours late… what do you say – time for the Mystery Twins?” he said with a smile.

“Mystery Twins are go.” she grinned back at him.

* * *

The spot mentioned wasn’t as easy to find as Dipper had first expected and it was actually almost an hour before the two managed to trudge and stumble their way through the underbrush until they spotted the blue farmhouse from the news report.

“So, how do you want to do this? Do we just sneak on and try to find the tracks or should we go up to the house and ask Mr. Stevens to show us?” Mabel asked as they walked through the thicket with the farmhouse coming closer into view.

“Well I don’t want us to get shot for trespassing… but at the same time he might not be too open to some curious tourists poking around his farm. We should probably think of a cover story.”

“Journalism!” Mabel said excitedly, snapping her fingers.

“What?”

“We pretend that we are reporters for a magazine coming to interview him about whatever it is that he saw.” Mabel said with a bright smile.

“That might work better if he hadn’t just been interviewed by a television crew – maybe he’s all interviewed out?” Dipper replied skeptically.

“Hey, you never know till you try Dipping-sauce… besides, our magazine is offering a bona-fide cash reward for proof of monsters, right?” she said slyly.

“I think Stan might have rubbed off on you a bit too much,” Dipper said somewhat disapprovingly, “… but then again he rubbed off on me too and I don’t have a better idea, so I’m all for it. Which magazine are we with?” he asked, beginning to feel his interest in the scheme grow.

“I don’t know, how about one of those weird ones that you subscribe too? You know, the ones that are all like ‘Bigfoot Stole My Truck!’ or 'Aliens behind Cubs losing streak!’”

“I don’t subscribe to that junk! I just pick it up sometimes at the supermarket when I’m bored… Its not like I read them that often.”

“Sure, sure – and I’m sure those _other_ magazines that dad grounded you over a few years ago were there because you really liked to read the articles.” she teased back with an exaggerated wink, causing him to blush slightly and adjust the brim of his hat while loudly clearing his throat.

“Ok, focus time – lets put on our game faces. You have the camera?” she nodded and held up a heavy black monstrosity with an enormous lens and colorful stickers dotted across it, “Very professional. I’ve got my notebook here… wish we had some sort of press pass or ID or something… no matter, lets do this!”

The twins walked up the worn dirt path leading up to the house, and as they came up closer Dipper could see the spots along the roof where the tiles were missing – as well as some long scratches left along the exposed patches of wood. Very _big_ scratches he thought nervously. They spotted the farmer coming around the side of the house with a wheelbarrow, and he stopped and stared at them quizzically for a moment before saying:

“Morning. Can I help you kids?”

“Good morning sir, I’m Tyrone Spruce and this is my associate-” Dipper began before his sister interjected,

“I’m Mabel!” she said brightly. Dipper turned at her and grunted slightly. “Mabel…Pinesanopolis.”

“O…kay.” the farmer replied slowly.

“We’re here with _Conspiracy Weekly,_ we heard all about your terrifying encounter last night and they rushed us over to get an interview.” Dipper said quickly.

“ _Conspiracy Weekly_? You the fellas what did that story about JFK being in league with the Loch Ness monster to fix football games?”

“Um… Yes.” Dipper said, looking away as Mabel turned toward him with a grin.

“Well fantastic! I was just thinking of calling you guys up – been a fan of your work for years. How did you hear about it so fast though? Damn thing happened just last night.”

“Oh an organization this… organized… always keeps its ear to the ground. They had us on the road right away.” Mabel said confidently with a nod and Dipper was relieved to see the old farmer nod along with her.

“So, sir, why don’t you tell us in your own words what it was that you saw?” Dipper asked, his pencil poised on the paper and a look of concentration on his face.

Stevens turned out to be a rather poor storyteller, he began by relating exactly what he had been watching on the television that night during the rain (as well as the plots of some of the shows and trying to hum out one of the theme songs), segued into telling them about a rainstorm that happened when he was a boy that he swore had lifted up one of the family cows and thrown it onto the roof of his house and then started telling them about the _cow_ that it had happened to. The twins stood with smiles frozen on their faces and Dipper nodded and pretended to be writing down the endless stream of nonsense that the old man was prattling about.

“FASCINATING!” Mabel practically shouted, startling the aged farmer out of an anecdote about a _different_ cow that had won blue ribbon at the state fair, “However Di- um.. .Tyrone and I are on an _extremely_ tight schedule and we need to get this story back to headquarters so they can get it all printed up. They especially wanted to make sure that I got a good shot of the heroic farmer who survived last nights deadly encounter… for the front page.”

The old man had looked somewhat flustered at his diatribe being interrupted, but at the words 'heroic’ and 'front page picture’ he brightened up. “Well why didn’t you say so! You big time journalists are always in a hurry… can’t let an old man talk your head off all dang day! Where should we take this? Should I put on my good suit?”

“We were thinking that a shot of you next to the footprint would be good, very dramatic!” Dipper replied as he shot a grateful look to Mabel for managing to dam up the seemingly endless stream of babble.

Stevens lead them along the field through a somewhat muddy patch of field until they reached a spot where branches from the nearby trees and other debris had been scattered around and disturbed in a wide circle, and there was the print. It was at least two feet long from the huge middle toe to the tip of back claw and looked like a very strange birds foot. Dipper thought back to the pterodactyl he had encountered all those long summers ago at the Falls but couldn’t remember if their feet had looked quite like this. Mabel was busy fussing with Stevens, having him pose in various ways near the print to get “the perfect shot”, and while they were distracted he made a quick crude sketch of the print in his notebook and then started poking around the debris circle. While he wasn’t an expert it reminded him of the way that helicopters kicked up quite a bit of dust and blew objects around in a wide cirlce when they came in for a landing. _This thing must be pretty large,_ he thought to himself as he examined the thickness of some of the branches, _if it was able to move things this heavy with just the wind from it coming in to land._ Something odd poked out from beneath one of the branches and Dipper knelt down to check it out, and found to his surprise and delight that it was a feather. A very large feather, with a quill almost as thick as his pinky that stretched out at least a foot long. Though it was soaked from last nights rain and somewhat ragged from being buried in junk he saw that its colors were a beautiful black with a sheen almost electric blue when the sunlight caught it just right. He quickly stuffed the discovery into his jacket and turned back to Mabel and the farmer who, for some reason, had switched places with Stevens holding the camera and Mabel posing enthusiastically next to the footprint.

“Mabel, I think its about time we headed back – we’ve taken up enough of Mr. Stevens valuable time.” Dipper said as he walked up to his sister and clapped a hand on her shoulder.

The two thanked their host for his time before they started trekking back down to the farmhouse and the path near it which lead back to Dippers car. When they were out of sight of the house Dipper pulled the feather out of his jacket and showed it to Mabel who examined it excitedly.

“This is pretty fantastic… _Tyrone.”_ she said with a grin.

“Its an alias! Anyway its not like its any sillier than 'Dipper’.” he said defensively.

“Good point.” she replied. “So whats the next step?”

“Well normally I’d say we should check the local library to see if there are any old newspaper clippings or legends about a giant bird in this area -” Dipper began before Mabel groaned, “but we’ve already taken enough time on this, so lets just get back on the road to Stans. This little souvenir is enough for now.”

When they reached the car Dipper had an idea and pulled the old map out of the glove compartment and found the town on it and made a careful mark on the town in pen and wrote “Giant Bird?” next to it. Might be worth checking out sometime later. Satisfied, Dipper slipped the map back and turned the key on the car, the engine sputtered and coughed its way to life and the twins were once again on the road.

* * *

It was already nightfall by the time the twins had passed by the worn wooden sign welcoming them to Gravity Falls and Mabel was currently at the wheel belting out one of her favorite 80’s power ballads at the top of her lungs in accompaniment to the radio while Dipper tried desperately to bury his face in a brick-thick mystery novel. He loved his sister, dearly, but even he had to admit that she had the singing voice of a furious parakeet. When he thought he was going to snap for sure she suddenly stopped wailing and announced:

“We’re here! Last stop the Mystery Shack, keep your arms, legs and various other extremities inside the vehicle until it has come to a complete stop.”

Dipper breathed a sigh of relief and sat up from his sullen slouch to take a good look around the town once again. Not much seemed to have changed since his last visit, though he had noticed a few new businesses having sprung up here and there along the main street strip. As they passed by the familiar sights Dipper felt the last of his gloominess from the previous night drop away and a lightness fill him up. While his times in this town had been occasionally stressful, to say the least, he had to admit that Gravity Falls had some sort of hold over him that made him feel more at peace than his hometown ever did. All the things he’d discovered here over the years, the strange secret truths and hidden places had distanced him from his peers back home. It was true what Mabel had said, about the fights at their old school, but the truth of it was that it had been hard to take bullies seriously after he’d already gone toe to toe with a talking bear covered in heads or a living video game character. He’d gotten along well enough with his classmates at the new school but knowing that he had to stay silent about so much or be considered an outcast had pushed him more toward his sister as the only other person who had experienced the weirdness that was his life. Mabel had adjusted to the “real” world much easier than he had, but that probably had more to do with her cheerful and carefree attitude. Her natural silliness had kept her out of the “popular girls” circle, but her friendliness and sense of fun had still earned her plenty of companions…

“Dipper, earth to Dipper!” Mabel said, interrupting his train of thought as she jabbed him in the side with her finger, “Give Grunkle Stan a call already and let him know we’ve arrived – we wouldn’t want to have to wake him up in the middle of the night honking the horn outside the shack, you know how crabby he gets.”

Dipper shook himself from his reverie and pulled out his phone and dialed up the Mystery Shack – the phone rang for almost a minute before it was picked up and Dipper was greeted by the gruff but welcome voice of his great uncle. Stan was surprised at the news of the unexpected visit and acted annoyed, but Dipper knew him well enough to hear the gladness in the old mans voice. He said he was sure he could put them up for a bit, though considering how big they’d probably have gotten he might have to charge them rent for taking up valuable shack space. They both had a laugh while Dipper wondered just how much of it was a joke. When it came to Stan and money it could be hard to tell.

The stars were already out in force when Dippers rattling blue sedan pulled into the spot near the totem pole outside the Mystery Shack but Stan was already waiting to greet them, surprisingly fully dressed in his tuxedo and fez – he looked like he’d even made something of an effort to shave his ever-present five-o-clock shadow. Dipper winced at all the small pieces of paper stuck to his face that showed that he had probably done it in a rush too, or at least that he’d been to cheap to switch to a sharper brand of razor. Stan actually greeted them with a hug, which was surprising from him, though he had turned the hug into a headlock when it was Dippers turn and the two had a light hearted tussle. Dinner that night was some of their great-uncles infamous brown meat stew, and he demanded to hear how things had been going back home. Dipper and Mabel related their various accomplishments (Dippers victory at the science fair was met with a good natured cry of “Nerd!” while Mabel got an “Atta-girl!” for winning the top prize a local talent show by teaching Waddles to dance while wearing an adorable costume). Things had gone on as usual in the Shack according to Stan, though Soos had been promoted to part time cashier as well as handyman since Wendy had gone off to college a few years ago. They talked until the small hours when Stan announced that he couldn’t stay up much longer and asked the twins where they were planning on sleeping. He offered them Soos’s break room, but Dipper and Mabel shook their heads.

“We were thinking of the attic actually. You know, for old times sake.” Dipper said with a yawn.

“Heh, well whatever suits you. Personally I’m not sure how you kids could stand it as long as you did up there.” Stan said as he headed off to his room.

Dipper and Mabel hauled in their well stuffed bags up the rickety old stairs and found themselves once again in the dark and spider-infested room above the shack. They quickly settled into the lumpy old mattresses in the familiar darkness, Mabel’s old faded posters still on the wall over her side and the remains of their old mini-golf course still scattered here and there on the floor.

“Feels weird to be back doesn’t it?” Mabel said sleepily.

“I don’t know… feels nice to me.” Dipper replied, “Not this mattress though. This thing still feels like its stuffed with whole sheep, bones and all.”

“Sorry for dragging you away from the whole giant bird thing earlier today. Not very Mystery Twin of me I guess.”

“Its ok- I’ll just go check it out later, when I have more time, y'know? I want to spend this vacation just having some fun with you and enjoying the town. No need to drag you into another one of these things.” Dipper answered, his eyes growing heavy with sleep.

“Hey, I normally have a lot of fun with this junk too… I had just really wanted to see Stan again. I’d missed the old rapscallion.” she said, her voice growing dim in his ears as he drifted off.

Mabel heard the start of her brothers faint snores and she smiled to herself as she snuggled into her uncomfortable bed. He’d looked so _alive_ when they had been out in that farmers field examining the footprint, and she had to admit that she’d felt a bit of a thrill herself. While the mysteries were more his thing she was very into the adventure of seeing new sights and having new experiences… they made a pretty great team when they worked together. He’d been in kind of a funk through their last year at high school, even though they hadn’t hung out as much she’d still noticed it, and seeing him getting really excited about something again was a great feeling.

She looked across the room to her sleeping brother and thought again on their conversation from the night before. _Dipper called me an amazing person,_ she thought, _and the truth is I think he’s pretty amazing too. He’s sweet and such a softy at heart, but he’s braver than anyone else I’ve ever met. He took on a giant robot with just his bare hands to save me once. The last guy I dated couldn’t even sit through a cheesy horror movie with me._ She paused, slightly startled. _Why did I just compare Dipper to one of my exes?_ She shook herself slightly, _Its just late and you’re getting loopy Mabel._

Pushing the last thought well out of her mind Mabel started thinking about their as yet unmade plan to stick together despite things like college and life getting in the way. _Maybe one of us can switch schools? No… I don’t have the grades for Dippers school and he can’t even draw a good stick figure so my art school is out of the question for him. Maybe something involving hypnosis? No, thats stupid._ She yawned loudly. _We’ll figure it out soon though,_ she thought as she drifted off into dreamland, _one way or another we’ll find a way to stick together._


	4. Chapter 3

_June 9_ _th_

The past 3 days had gone by in a whirlwind of activity, with the Pines twins finding themselves hard at work in the Mystery Shack; though with added responsibilities compared to their previous times manning the old tourist trap. Mabel had been promoted to cashier in place of Soos (though Stan hastily “promoted” him to Executive Handyman after he looked wounded by the decision) and Dipper had been tasked with leading the guided tours himself while Stan busied himself with a secret project of some sort that took up most of his time. Dipper suspected that Stans “secret project” was probably just an excuse to spend more time relaxing at the pool hall with his friends from the Lodge, but he didn’t mind too badly since he’d actually started to enjoy putting on a show for the groups of rubes who streamed into the out-of-the way old building to gaze in wonder at such attractions as “The Terrifying Eagle Bodied Griffon” (a stuffed eagle covered in glitter) or “The Jackassalope” (a donkey head with antlers glued to it… also covered in glitter). Back when he first started coming here with Mabel he’d resented the shacks corny attractions after all his encounters with real magic and horror, but over the years he’d come to enjoy the creativity of the exhibits and especially his great-uncles ability to bring out the magic in what was clearly a bunch of old junk. When Dipper had tried to present an actual monster captured from those demon haunted woods to the crowds they’d looked for the wires holding it up, but his uncle could convince people to pay top dollar just to get a glimpse of a bunch of his old hunting trophies hastily glued together. Dipper had taken to studying the old man when he was in full showmanship mode and had even managed to do a passable impersonation of his style, which never failed to get a laugh out of Mabel even when she was feeling down in the dumps. He caught her eye as he lead the newest group of suckers into the gift shop and put on his “Stan face” while rubbing his hands together greedily as the tourists swarmed over the gimmicky merchandise and she stifled a giggle in the sleeve of her sweater (a navy blue monstrosity with a smiling moon embroidered on it in silvery thread).

Dipper made his way through the crowd and up to the counter and whispered to Mabel, “Sis, I’m going to head upstairs for a while, I think I saw some stuff up in the attic that might make for a good exhibit. Can you keep an eye on things for a bit?”

“Pfft, no problem bro-bro, Mabel has it covered.” she said with a mock salute. Dipper nodded and then headed out toward the shacks living quarters while the customers started lining up with their various goods.

Mabel was quickly buried in money as the tourists left the shack with armfuls of overpriced junk. While she was busy counting up the totals after the last customer had left she was startled by a tap on her shoulder and the sound of “Hey dork.” in a cheerful feminine voice.

“Wendy!” Mabel exclaimed, scattering money as she turned to crush her old companion in a friendly bear hug.

“Gah! Easy there girl… gonna want to breathe again eventually.” Wendy joked as she patted Mabel’s back.

It had been a few years since Mabel had seen the tall red-head and was surprised by the changes that had come over her. The last of Wendy’s teenage gawkiness had been softened out and her features had taken on a more mature cast. Her hair was cut shorter into a kind of rough punk-y style and Mabel thought she could see the edges of some colorful tattoos peeking out from under the sleeves of Wendy’s flannel shirt.

“So, hows college been?” Mabel asked as she released her crushing grip on her old friend.

Wendy shrugged, “The homeworks tough but I just have one more year of it to go until graduation – I’ve heard that its you guys who are going to be entering in the fall. Congrats!”

“Wait, what are you even doing here? I thought your school was way on the other side of the state? Are you back to visit your family?” Mabel asked.

“Heh, yeah. Crazy coincidence that I just happened to run into you here.” Wendy said with a chuckle, her eyes shifting around slightly.

Mabel narrowed her eyes and jabbed Wendy playfully in the chest with her finger, “Spill it sister.”

“Ugh, fine… I suck at lying anyway. Stan’s planning on throwing a party for you guys and it was my job to get you both distracted and out of the shack for the afternoon while he sets it up.”

“Wait, Grunkle Stan is doing this right? The same guy who has to practically have money dragged out of him with red hot pokers is going out of his way to throw us a surprise party?”

“Yeah, well what can I say? You two have been a good influence on the old coot. You’re also pretty much the only people who visit him voluntarily that aren’t his employees, so I guess it makes you guys special to him.”

Mabel felt herself smile wide. She’d always known that her great-uncle wasn’t as crusty as he made himself seem, but it was still touching to hear how much he cared about her and her brother. “Well, I don’t want to ruin his plans – let me go get Dipper and you can distract us to your hearts content. What did you have in mind?”

“I dunno, I was just figuring on hitting up the arcade or maybe catching a movie.” Wendy said with a shrug.

“Sounds perfect – I’ll go extract Dipper from whatever corner of the attic he’s gotten himself stuffed into.” Mabel said, before skipping off toward the stairs.

She found Dipper with his head buried in some of the piles of cardboard boxes that were jammed up in the cavernous old attic, clearly distracted. With a small smile to herself Mabel quietly tip-toed over to him, knelt beside the box he was inspecting and shouted “WENDY’S HERE!”, sending her brother bowling head over heels to end up lying flat on his back and panting.

“Not funny Mabel.” Dipper growled as he stood up, pushing aside the debris thrown up by his fall.

“Sorry. I wasn’t kidding though, Wendy’s downstairs. She came to visit her family and heard we were in town, so we we’re gonna go off to the arcade. You’re coming, right?”

Dipper sat bolt upright and looked around in almost a near panic. “Wendy? Here? Now?”

Mabel shook her head with a chuckle, “What was all that in the car about ‘getting over your dorkishness?’. You’ve still got it bad don’t you bro? Tell you what, I’ll keep her distracted downstairs for a bit while you fix yourself up and then we can all head into town.”

Dipper smiled gratefully at his sister before darting over to his suitcase trying to find a clean shirt, or at least one that didn’t smell like he’d been wearing it all through a hot summer day. _It’s not like I’m still in love with Wendy or anything,_ Dipper thought to himself as he pawed through his pile of clothes, _its just that I don’t want to show up looking like a slob. I mean, no one wants to smell like old sweat in front of a hot girl. Crap, I just called her a hot girl. Am I still into her? Stop it Dipper, you haven’t seen her in 2 or 3 years, this is just old memories talking. You’re cooler than that now. You’ve actually dated girls. No need to act like a hormone crazed 12 year old again just because she was your first big crush. Don’t I have anything to wear that doesn’t have a dorky logo on it? Why do I still even have this Monstermon shirt?_

“D-iiiiipper!” Mabel called from downstairs, “If you take any longer we’re leaving you behind!”

 _Screw it,_ Dipper said as he pulled on a plain black tee-shirt and set his cap on his head firmly over his birthmark, _I’m as cool as I’m ever gonna be right now, so might as well just go for it!_

“Hold your horses! I’m going down already!” he called.

“That’s what she said!” he heard Wendy call back up with a laugh and he felt himself actually redden slightly in the ears. _Curse my bashful upbringing!_

Dipper made his way down the stairs and said in, what was to his mind, a casual tone “Oh, hey – Wendy. Hows it going, long time right?” Though she had always towered over him when he was younger he was surprised to see that he was actually an inch taller than her now when finally reached the bottom stair.

Wendy smiled up at him and gave him a look up and down, “Well look at you, all grown up. Should I call you Big Dipper now?” she said teasingly with a chuckle.

Dipper felt himself redden again and coughed slightly, at a loss for words until he felt Mabel’s arm come up behind his neck as she pulled him and Wendy into a friendly headlock.

“Enough chit-chat, I thought we were going to be off rotting our brains with video games instead of babbling all day?” Mabel said cheerfully. Though he was being choked by his sisters surprisingly strong grip Dipper was grateful for the interruption. _Any more of that fake casual stuff and I might have made an ass of myself,_ he thought to himself, _Screw this nervousness, it’ll just be nice to go out and have fun like we used to again._

Feeling himself relax, Dipper followed the girls out to Wendy’s truck and the three headed off for an afternoon of fun in town.

* * *

By the time the trio had arrived back from the heart of town the party was in full swing at the shack, with music courtesy of DJ Soos shaking the old windows in their panes & the sound of the towns residents enjoying themselves from inside. To Dippers surprise there wasn’t even a ticket booth, just a donation box at the door (though it did have picture of a glaring Stan pasted above it with the words “…Or else!” in red dripping letters written beneath the word “Donate”).

As they made their way in past the crowd of dancing teenagers Mabel was practically flying tackled by Candy and Grenda, who dragged her off in a chattering and giggling huddle leaving Dipper alone with Wendy. _Well, if you can call being surrounded by a bunch of dancing people alone,_ Dipper thought.

“We should go find Stan,” Wendy said, “he’d set up this whole thing to surprise you guys so he’ll probably want to see you tonight.”

“Where is he anyway?” Dipper asked, scanning the crowd.

“Oh my god look!” Wendy said with a laugh as she pointed, and Dipper followed her gaze to the sight of his great-uncle cutting a rug with Lazy Susan. “That old man still has some moves… not good moves, but he has them at least.”

“Heh, yeah… Well, no point in interrupting his fun.” Dipper said, nodding his head along with the music. “I’m gonna go grab some punch. You want any?”

“Sure, sounds good,” Wendy said, “but when you get back we’re dancing, got that?”

“Um… sure, ok!” Dipper replied as he nervously laughed and made his way to the refreshments. _Ok, play it cool here. Why is she acting so into me? Am I reading too much into things? Maybe she just wants to dance. That’s probably it. She did seem to really enjoy playing ’_ Dancy Pants Revolution III: The Bloodening _’ at the arcade with Mabel. That was a weird game- who thought that killing zombies with dance moves was a good idea?_

While Dipper was distracted pondering the baffling decisions behind the games design Mabel was out on the dance floor with her friends, catching up on all the latest gossip.

“So, there’s no chance that Pacifica is going to show up and ruin the party, right?” Mabel asked Candy as she took a breather from her enthusiastic dancing.

“No, she had to go stay with her aunt out of town for a while for medical reasons.” Candy replied.

“Candy means that Pacifica got knocked up and her parents didn’t want her to ruin their image.” Grenda added with her usual discretion and volume.

“Yeesh… wouldn’t want to be that kid.” Mabel replied.

“Enough about that witch, how have you been?” Candy asked.

“I’ve been pretty great! Me and Dipper are going to be staying up here for the summer, so I’ll get to spend some more time hanging out with my best friends after all!” Mabel said with a gleaming smile.

“Speaking of your brother, when did he stop being such a dork?” Grenda asked.

“What do you mean? I don’t think that’s physically possible.” Mabel joked.

“Well, he has gotten kind of… cute.” Candy said shyly.

“Your bros hot.” Grenda said bluntly.

“What? C'mon, girls – the guys in this town can’t be so bad that you think my little brother is a catch?” Mabel replied with a laugh.

“You just can’t see it cause he’s family, but trust me – he looks good.” Candy said somewhat defensively.

“If you say so…” Mabel said. “Say, where is he anyway?”

She scanned the room and found her brother dancing with Wendy, a carefree look on his face. His dance moves were pretty goofy, but looking at him under the crazy lighting of the party he seemed different somehow. Like an optical illusion becoming clear she noticed that he was actually a pretty handsome guy. _Well, I guess it makes sense – we’re twins and obviously I’m super cute. Still though, it’s strange that I hadn’t noticed before. Or is it strange? I mean yeah, he’s sweet and fun and nice… but I’d never really thought of him like.. Blegh, what am I even thinking here?_

“Enough talking about my brother – there’s dancing to be done and plenty of cute guys here that I’m not related to that look like they could use some company!” Mabel exclaimed as she grabbed her friends by the hands and dragged them out onto the floor once again.

* * *

The night wore on and the parties energy started to wind down with it. Dipper had been having a pretty great time; he’d danced, he’d laughed & he’d had his fill of junk food to last a while – Stan had gone all out for this bash. _I think I can even recognize some name brand food here… no wait, false alarm._

He’d just finished talking with Stan to thank him for the celebration, and while his great-uncle had claimed that the party was yet another attempt to drum up interest in the shack as a place to rent for events Dipper could see that he was glad that his niece and nephew had been having a good time.

“I saw you out on the dance floor earlier with Wendy,” the old man had said, “good to see that you’ve gotten some guts since you’ve grown up. I remember back when you couldn’t talk to her without your face turning into a sweaty tomato.”

“Heh, thanks. I don’t know why, but things seem to be going my way lately. This trip was a good idea.”

“Actually there’s something I’d wanted to talk to you about along those lines,” Stan had said, “but we can discuss it tomorrow. I think I see a girl out there who still isn’t totally danced out.” he said as he slapped his nephew on the back and sent him on his way back to the party.

Now as Dipper walked out onto the dance floor he noticed the music had slowed down, and when he caught up with Wendy they were pulled close into a slow dance.

“I’ve had a pretty fun night Dip,” Wendy said as she swayed with him along to the music, “how about you?”

“Its been good… gotta say that I’ve done more dancing now than I usually do.” Dipper replied.

“It shows,” Wendy teased, “but you got better. Would you want to step out for some air after this song?”

“Um… Sure.” Dipper replied, now nervous once again. _I think she IS coming on to me._

The song ended, as all songs eventually do, and the two went through the doors of the shack and out under the stars. Dipper found himself at a loss for words sitting there on the porch of the shack, all he could remember were facts from his astronomy class that he was sure would bore Wendy to tears. The silence dragged on for a few moments longer and just when Dipper had gotten desperate enough to try to recall the least boring of the astronomy facts he felt the older girl slide in closer to him and pull his face toward hers for a kiss. Dipper found himself frozen in shock for a moment before he felt himself relax and started to kiss back.

 _My god this is actually happening! Wait… why is this happening?_ He thought to himself. _Dang it Dipper, don’t over think this – just go with it! Oh man she kisses hard._

He felt himself pull back from the kiss to get some air and looked into Wendy’s face. “Um, not that this isn’t great..” _Damn it Dipper, do not ruin this for us!_ “but, why the kiss all of a sudden?”

Wendy looked at him quizzically, “Does it matter?” she asked as she leaned in for another kiss, this one even longer than the last.

 _Of course it doesn’t matter, this is awesome!_ Dipper thought, but when their lips separated again he found himself asking “Well… I guess it doesn’t matter per se… but you know me and mysteries. Heh… heh…” _What are you doing!?_

Wendy shook her head with a small smile. “Dork. Ok, fine… I got dumped a week ago by my last boyfriend, and I knew you always had a little crush on me and you looked pretty good tonight, so I thought… why not?”

“So, I’m a rebound sort of thing?” Dipper asked, his heart sinking in his chest.

“Maybe. I don’t know… I just thought we’d been having a good time, so why not have some fun?”

“Uh… I don’t know… but..” _No, no buts, what are you doing? “_ I’m just not too comfortable with it. I mean, we’ve been good friends without any of this stuff complicating things and I kind of like it that way.” _Welp, there goes that._

Wendy shrugged, “Fine by me. We still cool?”

“Yeah. We’re good.” Dipper said with a smile.

“'Kay, then I’m going to take off for the night. We’ll hang out later then.”

“Sure, see you around.” Dipper replied, somewhat quietly. As he watched her get into her car and drive off he felt a small hollow inside. _Well… that could have gone better. Still, if I’d ended up making out with Wendy I might have started getting attached again and she’s not looking for a new boyfriend. It probably just would have lead to more heartbreak in the future._

_Still doesn’t make it feel any easier though._

His party mood gone Dipper went in through the back door of the shack and up to the attic. He lay back on his bed and reflected on the day. _Honestly the whole Wendy thing was just kind of immature of me… Even if she was looking for something more serious it could have been a disaster. Personality-wise we don’t really click too well, she’s older than me by a few years and would be out of college while I’m still in it and we don’t live anywhere near each other._ He thought back on his various relationships in highschool and how they’d gone. Though he hadn’t had as many girlfriends as Mabel had boyfriends neither of them had ever gotten into a really serious relationship. He’d just never felt that strong of a spark with them and had found that the same spark was lacking when he’d kissed Wendy earlier. _Maybe I’m just not suited for this kind of stuff?_

As he sat lost in thought he was startled by Mabel suddenly leaning over him and saying “Hey, what are you doing up here? The parties still going!”

“Gah! When did you even get here Mabel?” said Dipper, confused by her sudden appearance.

“I saw you sneak up here like 15 minutes ago. Whats up? Where’s Wendy? I thought you two were having a good time?” she said, the last part said with a conspiratorial waggle of her eyebrows.

“Well I kind of burned that bridge… but I don’t really mind I guess.” Dipper said, and told her about their conversation outside.

“The nerve!” Mabel said indignantly, “No one uses my little brother for rebound make-outs and gets away with it!”

“Mabel, you’re only 5 minutes older than me and I’m bigger than you – I think we can stop with the 'little brother’,” Dipper replied jokingly, “and anyway its fine. She didn’t do anything wrong, she just sees these sorts of things differently.”

“If you say so…” Mabel replied, “but what would you do if a guy I liked made out with me because he’d been dumped, but he wasn’t really into me so I ended up feeling all used and stuff?”

“I’d kill him.” Dipper replied quickly.

“Heh, see? The protective streak can run both ways Dipping-sauce. Now c'mon, lets head back down – the parties almost done and we need to get our dance on before the night ends!” Mabel called to him as she ran skipping back down the stairs.

Dipper smiled after her and sat back up on his bed. _She always knows what to say to take me out of myself. I’m a lucky guy having a sister like that… funny, caring, and adventurous… she’s just great to be around. That’s the whole reason I’m here,_ he thought, _to make sure that we can stick together. I’ll worry about my screwed up romantic life later.  
_

He made his way back to the party room and saw his sister there in a group dance with Candy and Grenda, her hair flying behind her as she spun and moved to the beat, laughing and carefree. He found himself smiling wide at the sight. _She looks beautiful when she dances. Wait, did I just think that? Well, its fine if I did… nothing wrong with noticing that. Its like noticing a sunset or a rainbow… just perfectly innocent aesthetics._

Mabel turned and flashed a smile at him when she saw him at the doorway and waved him over, “Hey, come get in on this Dr. Funtimes! Last song of the night!” she called. He noticed, for the first time, the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled genuinely and he felt his heat skip a beat in his chest. _Or noticing the ocean, or the way that stars reflect on water… Uh… I’m getting kind of poetic here… Its not like I think shes…_ He stopped.

_Oh no. I think I do think that._

_This… This might complicate things._


	5. Chapter 4

_June 12_ _th_

“C'mon Dipper! We’re almost at the end here – no time to slow down!” Mabel called to her brother further back on the hiking trail.

Dipper had been acting strange ever since the night of the party… just kind of quiet and sort of nervous seeming. Just this morning when Mabel had woken up she’d found his bed empty and her brother asleep on the armchair in the living room with the television on as if he’d snuck down in the middle of the night and just ended up watching TV till he passed out. Mabel had taken it upon herself to cheer her brother up but so far nothing she’d tried had seemed to work out like she’d planned… random hugs, surprise pokes & sneaking up behind him and making annoying noises just seemed to be upsetting him even more. _Well, ok – I can see how the annoying noises part might not have been the best plan,_ she thought to herself critically as she hefted the weight of her small backpack, _but the other stuff usually always worked in the past. That whole deal with Wendy must have messed with him way more than I thought… Still, nothing like a good workout to help drive out heartbreak!_

Dipper had resisted her prodding and cajoling him into taking a nature hike with her near the lake at first but she’d finally managed to convince him through a combination of puppy dog eyes and mentions of a strange apelike creature spotted in the woods by some locals.

“C'mon Dipper, it’ll be fun!” she had pleaded as they had sat eating their breakfast that morning, “Plus how many chances are you going to get to go sasquatch hunting while you’re off studying rocket-calculus or whatever that math class you signed up for is called?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a real class.” he’d said, a smile creeping unbidden onto his face. “I don’t really think that I’m up for a hike right now though Mabel..”

“Dipper, you’ve been moping around the shack for like, 2 days… our summer isn’t going to last forever. Go with me, I could use some company from my favorite brother.” Mabel said, turning the charm up to 11 with one of her wide smiles.

Dipper looked into her face and she could see the ‘no’ forming on his lips before she saw a beat of hesitation. “You’re right. Sorry I’ve been so weird lately, I’ve just got a lot of… stuff… going on in my head right now that I’m working through. Where was it we were going again?”

It had now been hours since that conversation and Dipper found himself panting and sweating up the trail under a massive pack, trudging after his sister. _If Mabel doesn’t want to do art for a living at least she’ll always have a promising future as a drill sergeant to look forward to – this hike is brutal!_

Mabel appeared from behind a stand of tree’s and waved him toward her, “You’re almost there bro! Just a mile more!” she called cheerfully before skipping off ahead. She’d traded her usual outfit for the more practical combination of shorts and a brightly colored athletic shirt that looked like it had been mugged by a rainbow. Dipper couldn’t help but notice how gracefully she moved, her long creamy legs and arms swinging in easy rhythm as she jogged ahead… _A very cute cute drill sergeant. Augh! No… c'mon man, pull yourself together here. You DO NOT have a thing for Mabel… she’s… she’s MABEL for gods sake!_

Setting his pack more firmly on his shoulders so that the left strap stopped digging into his neck, Dipper marched on, casting his eyes around for pretty much anything to take his mind off of this new and very distressing train of thought that had started to worm its way through his mind since the night of the party. Between this and his talk with Stan the other night he’d had a lot on his mind…

* * *

It had happened in the late evening the day after the party, once the last of the tour groups was gone for the day. Soos had already packed up his tools and headed off to his grandmother’s for the night, and Mabel was having a girls night out with Candy and Grenda. Though Dipper was glad that he might be able to pass the evening without worrying if he was looking at her too much or avoiding her too much or just generally acting weird he was still feeling sort of lonely without having Mabel around. He’d come down from the attic and sat with Stan who was watching a boxing match in the living room. Dipper wasn’t really a good judge for this sort of thing, but the old man was harshly critical about the fighters abilities.

“Look at these clowns dancing around in there… if I was ten years younger… well, maybe 30 or 40 years younger anyway, I could show them a thing or two.” Stan griped.

“Sure thing,” Dipper said distractedly as he tried to lose himself in his novel amid the noise of the crowd coming in from the television.

The fight ended on points instead of a knockout and Stan shut off the television with a disgusted “Bah!”

Thinking that his uncle was going to be heading off to bed already, Dipper started to get up to head for the attic once more, but Stan stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“Hold up a minute kid, meet me over in my office – I got something I need to show you.” Stan had said as he sat up from his creaking armchair and cracked his back with a groan.

Dipper shrugged and followed his great-uncle over to the quiet room that Stan kept tucked away in the shack that he went to when he felt like being alone and found him seated at his desk there with a thick yellowed document in his gnarled hands.

“So.. uh, take a seat Dipper.” Stan said, motioning to one of the chairs in the room. Dipper sat across from his uncle, confused and feeling like he was in some sort of bizarre job interview.

“Whats up Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked as the old man adjusted some papers and coughed a little.

“Well, the thing is kid… Man, how long have you been coming up here? It seems like only yesterday when you were just a boy and I sat you down in this room and explained to you the facts of life.” Stan said.

“I… I don’t actually remember that happening.” Dipper said, confused. _Maybe I blocked it out?_

“Really? I could have sworn… maybe I’m thinking of the time that I sat Soos down here and explained to him the facts of life. Sheesh, can that guy cry or what? Anyway, I’m getting off topic here. The thing is that I’ve seen you grow up a lot around here. You came here a sniveling little wimp and you’ve turned into a real man over the years.” Stan continued, his voice tinged with pride.

“Thanks… I think.” Dipper said, somewhat annoyed at Stans choice of words.

“The point is that I’m proud of you. I never had any kids of my own… you know, that I know of anyway.. so I was going to let you know this now – I’m going to be leaving the Shack to you in my will.” Stan said.

“What?” Dipper said, stunned. “Are you ok? Are you sick?”

“Jeez, no I’m doing fine! At the rate I’m going now I’ll probably outlive you,” Stan said, flexing a wrinkled bicep, “but in case you do manage to survive me I was thinking that it would be good for this place to go to someone who would take good care of it. Make it a family business kind of thing. I wanted to get your opinion on this before I finalized any of the paperwork though. What do you say kid?”

Dipper sat back in the chair. _Ownership of the Mystery Shack? Thats… thats huge. What do I do? Could I really run this place? Do I want to run this place?_ He saw Stan looking at him expectantly, an inscrutable expression on his face. _Stans giving it to me because he thinks I can handle it… and maybe I can._

Dipper nodded at his uncle, “I’m in.”

Stan sat back with a smile. “Glad to hear it kid. Now don’t go thinking you’re just going to jump into this right away… I’ve still got plenty of years of scamming rubes left in me before you get this place. Who knows though? Heck, maybe one day I’ll just leave it to you and retire to go out on the road again.”

Dipper chuckled, “Well, you did always says its harder for them to catch you when you’re traveling.”

“Darn straight!” Stan said with a laugh of his own. “Anyway, when that ends up happening I’ve got some papers that I’ll need you to read in my safe. You seem like you’ve got a good head for secrets and there’s a few that I think you’ll be ready for in a few years.”

“What kind of papers?” Dipper asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Never you mind for now! Forget I said that last part. Anyway, I’m gonna head off to bed now. All this emotional junk has gotten me drained out.” Stan said, standing up quickly to leave the room.

“You really think I’ll be able to handle it?” Dipper asked before Stan had opened the door.

“If anyone can take care of this place the way it deserves to be, its you kid. Your sister didn’t seem to enjoy it when she’d been in charge of the place, but I’ve seen you give the tours and you’ve got a flair for it. Plus my only other option was leaving it to Soos, which I think we can both agree is a disaster waiting to happen.” Stan said.

“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly… but I wouldn’t _not_ put it that way either.” Dipper said regretfully.

The two had parted ways for the night and Dipper had taken a slow walk around the shack, taking in every corner and beam of the place with new eyes. _Me, the future owner of the Mystery Shack? I’ve got to tell Mabel!_

His thoughts returned once again to his sister and he felt his ears redden with shame. _If I can ever manage to talk to her again without cringing that is._

* * *

The 'last mile’ that Mabel had promised did indeed lead to the end of the trail, but came to a steep hill that she insisted that they definitely had to climb. Dipper had groaned under the weight of his pack and demanded a short rest first and Mabel had agreed, stretching and taking a seat beneath the shade of a tall old oak tree.

Mabel glanced over at her brother as he fussed with his pack, looking for his water bottle. _Well, he looks tired and tired is better than depressed any day of the week,_ Mabel thought to herself. She was a firm believer in post-breakup workouts rather than post-breakup ice-cream binges, and considering the number of boyfriends she’d had throughout her high school years it had probably been the much healthier option for her. _Dipper on the other hand,_ she thought, _just sinks deeper into himself. He broods too much… heck, after that last girl dumped him back in junior year I almost went crazy hearing him listen to that one mopey album over and over again._ She thought back on the day when she’d finally had enough of seeing her brother miserable and had dragged him, physically, out of his room and along with her out on the town. He’d been surly at first, but after a day of hitting up video game stores, the comic shop & the new monster movie exhibit at the local museum he’d been laughing and joking with her again like it was just any other day. When they had arrived back home that night he’d smiled at her and thanked her for taking him out and she’d felt a familiar warmth in her chest seeing just how much she’d been able to do for him. He’d also handed her the CD that had been on loop throughout the week and she’d ceremonially snapped it over her knee and tossed the pieces into the garbage as they both had a laugh. _I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again!,_ Mabel thought with new resolve, _He’s always been there for me when I’m down and I’m not going to let him waste our summer brooding about some crush from when he was twelve._

“Alright Sir Dipstick, break time’s over – we’re going to TAKE. THAT. HILL! Are you ready?” She called out enthusiastically as she walked up to him and held out her hand to help him to his feet. Wearily, he took it and followed her to the base of the steep hill where she began to do a few warm up stretches to prepare for the climb.

Dipper tried, very hard, not to stare at Mabel as she’d stretched out and particularly tried not to notice that her shorts were showing much more of her legs than he was accustomed to seeing. _C'mon man, don’t be weird. Its just shorts. She’s your twin… its not like you haven’t seen her at the pool in her bathing suit before. Crap. Why did I just think of that? Gah! How many times are you going to touch your toes Mabel? They’ve been touched already!_

Dipper coughed, glad that at least the long hike gave him a plausible excuse for being red in the face and somewhat sweaty. “Say sis, why not let me lead the way up the hill… I think I’ve got my second wind!” he said with terribly overdone fake enthusiasm. _Also, I won’t have to walk behind you in those shorts. Ugh… what is wrong with me? Happy thoughts Dipper. Pure clean happy thoughts. Like Bigfoot. What if we see Bigfoot today? That would be great. Just breathe deep and think of Bigfoot.  
_

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel chimed out, slapping her brother in the back. “Lead the way Dipper!”

The climb was tough – the hill wasn’t as steep as a true cliff, but the footholds and convenient branches to grab onto for stability were few and far between and soon Dipper found himself lost in the pure physicality of the moment. _This is more like it,_ he thought, _just me and this hill. A clear goal ahead._ They were drawing closer to the top now and Dipper felt at peace for the first time in days as he saw how close they were. As he started to reach out for a sapling to help stabilize his footing Dipper heard a sudden yelp behind him and turned to see Mabel scrabbling as her foothold crumbled beneath her. Acting without thinking Dipper threw off his backpack and scuttled down the hillside after her as she was grasping a protruding root in a white knuckle grip, a look of sudden panic frozen on her face.

“Hang on Mabel!” he called as he finally reached her, and he quickly stripped off his belt and wrapped the loop around the tree and held the other end firmly wrapped in his fist. Satisfied at the strength of the hold he knelt down and grasped her forearm with his other hand. “Ok, when I say 'Go’ you grab tight to my arm and I’ll pull us up, ready?”

“Yes! Good! Whatever! Just pull already!” she screamed in panic as she dug her nails into his arm and kicked at the hill to haul herself up.

Wincing at the pain of her fingers digging into his skin, Dipper hauled steadily and carefully brought Mabel up over the patch of loose dirt that had caused her to stumble and deposited her beside him onto stable ground. Panting, Mabel suddenly crushed him to herself in a tight embrace.

“God that was scary… thanks Dipper.” she gasped. Mabel felt her brothers arms encircle her tightly in return and she found herself surprised at the strength there. _Definitely not the noodly arms he used to have,_ she thought to herself, lightheaded.

“Hey, you know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” Dipper replied. _I wouldn’t and I won’t_ , Dipper thought, _not ever._

Mabel looked up into his face and for once she couldn’t read the emotions there. There was relief… and that stern look he got when he was feeling especially overprotective… and something else that she couldn’t place. Something that made his face seem… different than it had ever looked to her before.

“Promise?” she said, her heart thumping in her chest. _Is this the fear? Why do I feel like this?_ Mabel could feel the beat of Dippers own heart against her chest and she felt the humming of her pulse matching his.

“I promise.” he said, his voice solemn but strangely tender, “Always.” _Now would be a good time to pull back Dipper,_ he thought to himself, _before this becomes a much more awkward sibling hug than the usual. Any second now._ He didn’t move though. His muscles felt a million miles from his mind, but he could feel her warm in his arms and didn’t want to let it end.

 _He really is handsome,_ Mabel thought, _something about that look just brings it out. Gah… why am I still holding onto him? He’s probably getting freaked out… pull yourself together Mabel!_ Reluctantly she began to release her hold, and though she felt a pulse of hesitation she felt her brothers grip slacken as well. They stepped apart in silence, neither looking the other directly in the face. _What am I thinking? C'mon Mabel… you aren’t really feeling this… are you?_

“Well!” Dipper exclaimed suddenly, his hands clapping together with a sound like thunder in the silence, “That’s one way to liven up a hike, right?” _Smooth one Pines,_ he thought to himself.

“Heh… yeah. Nothing like a near death experience to make you appreciate all this nature.” Mabel joked back. _Oh no, please don’t be weird here Mabel,_ she thought.

“Well, how about we make it up to the top of this hill then?” Dipper said, brightly.

“Sounds good! I bet the view up there is fantastic – I brought the camera!” Mabel replied. _'I brought the camera?’ What kind of awkward mess is that?_

As Dipper turned to retrieve his fallen backpack which had rolled down the hill nearby he felt a tugging at his wrist and saw Mabel’s hand grasping it, her eyes looking up to meet his for the first time since their hug. Without thinking his own hand slid up her wrist to meet hers and their fingers twined together. _C'mon man… what about Bigfoot? Remember all those nice non-weird Bigfoot thoughts you were going to have?_

“Lets… lets go up together. In case either of us trip again.” Mabel said quietly. _Mabel, what are you doing? What’s he going to think? He’s holding too though… I mean… he’d stop if he thought it was too much, right?  
_

Dipper hesitated for a second, sure that this was a bad idea but he quashed all the doubts in his mind and said, “Sure. Sounds like a good idea. You can catch me next time.”

Hand in hand the twins slowly ascended up the hill.

* * *

Dipper sat now on the edge of the hill, looking out at the sun gleaming off the ripples of the lake below and took a deep breath of the cool forest air, heavy with the scent of pine and that warm-dusty-earth smell that he had always thought of as 'sunshine’ ever since he was a child. The rest of the climb hadn’t taken them terribly long and when they reached the top the strange quiet spell that seemed to have fallen over the twins following Mabel’s fall was broken by the growls of their stomachs. Dipper had broken out the lunches that they had stowed in his pack and they sat eating their sandwiches and sodas (over-carbonated from the backpack being thrown around) with the birdsong whistling around them. Conversation had been slow to start at first, but like always they found their familiar rhythm and Dipper felt a sense of normalcy returning. He’d told Mabel of his conversation with Stan and she had a secret laugh about the 'facts of life’ bit which just left him more confused now than it had before (especially when she quietly shuddered “The hand gestures were the worst part”). Dipper felt at peace now that things seemed to have gotten back to the way they should. _Back there though… I could almost swear when she grabbed my hand that… no… she was just shaken up after her fall. She wasn’t thinking anything like that. You’re the weird one this time Dipper, not Mabel,_ he thought to himself reproachfully.

Their lunches were long gone now and Mabel had walked along the hilltop snapping pictures from every angle of the valley laid out below, the lake, the birds & even a few of particular trees that she thought looked interesting. She’d even had Dipper pose over-dramatically on the hilltop to commemorate his “daring rescue”. The last one he’d gone along with semi-reluctantly, and he’d vetoed her suggestion that he be flexing heroically for the shot.

Dipper reflected on the afternoon as he watched the waves of the lake below gently slosh against the gravel beach. It HAD been good to get out of the house, and it had also been good to spend time with Mabel again. Avoiding her wasn’t a solution to his problem and it had just seemed to make her unhappy too. _She’d said she wanted us to stick together. That she didn’t want to lose us. Pulling away from her now wouldn’t be being a good brother, it would mean being a coward. I should just face up to this and get over it. For her sake._

“Why the long face bro?” Mabel asked as she suddenly appeared from behind before settling down beside him. “You still thinking about the Wendy thing?”

“Sort of.” Dipper replied. _It’s similar at least._

“Well whats been eating you lately? We’d been doing great when we arrived, but ever since the party you’ve been just kind of… blargh.” Mabel asked, concern in her voice.

“Just… things.” Dipper said, trying to dodge the topic, and Mabel relented after seeing the look on his face.

“I’ve had things on my mind too.” Mabel said. “Like what we we’re going to do about that whole college situation. We’ve been here almost a week already, so if you’ve got a plan in mind yet I’d love to hear it.”

“I’ve had a few thoughts on that.” Dipper replied, _some of them very strange._ “Actually that talk with Stan has something brewing in the back of my mind but I don’t want to say anything till I’m sure about it.”

“Keep thinking then and I’ll think too… I don’t want to lose you in my life.” she said quietly.

“Me neither.” he replied softly. _More than anything I don’t want that._

Mabel slid up closer and he found himself draping an arm across her shoulder instinctively. _Is this weird? Do I normally do this? I don’t remember. Why am I over-thinking everything lately!_ His thoughts were silenced when he felt Mabel lean her head against his chest and her own arm circle around his waist.

They sat in silence watching the late afternoon sun sink slightly behind the hills and set the lake on fire with the colors of sunset.

 _No, one way or another I’m not going to lose this,_ each twin thought separately yet together, their identical thoughts unknown to the other as they sat in one another’s arms in warm silence.

From the trees behind them a flat apelike face watched them silently for a few moments before it turned and moved ever so carefully back down the hill, its curiosity satisfied. Bigfoot recognized people who didn’t want to be disturbed when it saw them. Besides, it was almost certain that the girls camera still had some film left.


	6. Chapter 5

_June 17_ _th_

The woods echoed with a bloodcurdling shriek unlike anything ever made in a human throat as the Pines twins found themselves crashing through the underbrush, running hand in hand.

“Do you think it’s still following us?” Dipper panted to Mabel as they paused to catch their breath with their backs to the trunk of an enormous tree.

The shriek sounded again, louder and shriller and somehow even more terrifying than before.

“I’d say thats a yes!” Mabel replied as she pulled Dipper away from the tree and back into a run, their feet pounding through the debris of fallen leaves and hard packed earth in perfect synchronization.

 _This has been one hell of a week,_ Dipper thought as his eyes darted between the trees and up to the sky, seeking their tormentor and any place that might provide an opportunity to escape from it, _and this thing is definitely not helping any!_

“There!” Mabel hissed as she pointed at a hollow cut into the path by a dry creek bed, a thick fallen log across the space providing perfect concealment from above. Wordlessly the two made the jump and found themselves scrambling under the shadow of the log, each gripping the other in a tight embrace – their ears perked for the sound of their pursuer.

The shriek came again, closer than before and Dipper felt Mabel stiffen in his arms. Digging through his pockets he extracted an old antler-handled jackknife (a present from Soos a few birthdays ago) and slid the blade out – it was small, thin and almost certain to snap if he tried to do anything more violent than pry off a bottle-cap but he still felt better for having it. Less helpless. Mabel looked from the knife to her brothers face and he saw her jaw stop trembling. She nodded slightly and extracted her grappling hook from _somewhere_ on her person and held it in her now-steady grip like she was posing for an action movie poster.

 _Where does she always find the space to hide that thing?_ Dipper wondered to himself, feeling somewhat lightheaded from the fear chemicals flooding his system. All thoughts were driven from his head when the shriek came again and he tightened his grip on the knife till his knuckles were white and he felt the screws on the handle digging into his palm.

_Ok Dipper… calm down now. Fear is the mind killer. Oh god, I’m going to die and my last thought is going to be a quote from a science fiction book? I AM a dork._

“Dipper!” Mabel hissed, causing him to jump slightly, but he fortunately managed to strangle the embarrassing gasp before it could leave his throat.

“What?” he hissed back.

“That last one didn’t sound as close… I think it might have passed over us already.” Mabel replied in a whisper.

They both sat expectantly listening for nearly a minute before the next shriek came, this time noticeably fainter than before. Dipper breathed out a deep sigh of relief and felt his grip on the knife slacken. The immediate danger was passed… but now what were they going to do?

“Leaving right now could be a bad idea… we don’t know if it might come back this way yet. I’d rather not risk making too much noise or moving out in the open if I can help it.” Dipper whispered to Mabel, and she nodded in agreement. He was suddenly aware that Mabel was still pressed tight to his chest with his arm around her and he could smell the bubblegum she’d been chewing earlier on her breath (she’d accidentally swallowed it halfway through their heart-pounding chase through the forest). _Now of all times? Really Dipper?_ he chided himself.

“Yeah… good idea.” Mabel replied. “So, how long do you think we should wait here?” She shifted slightly, getting more comfortable in the cramped space under the hollow.

“Uhmm… I’m not really sure.” Dipper said. “I don’t really know much about the hunting habits of giant vampire bats. Honestly until today I wasn’t sure there _were_ giant vampire bats.”

“We should have brought along the shrinky-crystal – that would have made short work of him.”

Dipper groaned. “A pun. Now?”

“There’s never a bad time for a good joke.” Mabel replied primly. “Anyway why didn’t we bring along any of that weird magic stuff that we packed? It took up a lot of valuable sweater-space in my suitcase and now its just sitting up in our room at the shack.”

“I don’t know, I thought we were just going to be checking out the cave near all the cattle mutilations for clues today, not accidentally stumbling into a monster lair… Plus I can never figure out what to take and we don’t have enough space to carry all of it.” Dipper replied with a shrug. A distant shriek caused him to tense up briefly but he quelled the fear more easily this time.

“We should get utility belts!” Mabel hissed excitedly. “I can knit us some when we get back home.”

“Mabel, I’m not wearing a utility belt – thats just an even dorkier fanny pack.” Dipper replied.

“C'mon, you could be like Batman. You love Batman!” she said, nudging him with her routine set of jabs and pokes.

“Batman isn’t real!” Dipper hissed.

“Oh sure, a man dressed as a bat fighting crime is so implausible but whatever the hell that thing chasing is us makes perfect sense?” Mabel replied, her voice tense.

“How can you joke around at a time like this?” he said indignantly.

“Its the only thing keeping me from screaming!” she hissed back at him her eyes flashing.

They both sat in silence for a few moments, their breaths short and harsh from their argument.

“I’m sorry for dragging you along with me,” Dipper said quietly as his anger drained away, “I’m not doing so hot on the whole ‘not letting anything happen to you’ front right now, am I?”

The sound of regret in Dippers voice cut through Mabel’s own anger like a knife, and she felt the tension in her muscles suddenly relax. Now keenly aware of how close they were pressed together she started to pull back from him but stopped herself. _I don’t really want to pull back,_ she thought, _even if it is weird._

“You didn’t twist my arm or anything,” Mabel replied as she found herself snuggling in closer to Dipper, “I’m a big girl and came on my own. Someone needs to try and keep you out of trouble.”

“Good job there sis.” Dipper replied jokingly as he ran his hand absentmindedly up and down her back and she stuck her tongue out at him playfully in response. _She’s… um… really close in now. Should I move or… no, she just got in closer… What’s she doing? Calm down, she probably just doesn’t want to be stuck lying in rocks and dirt like I am. Ugh, that root there is just hitting all the worst spots._ He shifted himself uncomfortably against the ground, trying to find a position that wasn’t such a pain in the back.

“Dipper, you aren’t being a very good pillow when you’re wiggling around like that.” Mabel said, “When a lady rests on you a gentlemen should try and stay still. Thats like, Cuddling 101.”

“I uh… don’t think I took that course.” Dipper replied. _Oh come on what was that? Was that a flirt? Are we flirting? Am I really that BAD at flirting? Shut up subconscious!_

“Well, we may be stuck here a while. Maybe its time we catch up?” Mabel said.

“Catch up how?” Dipper replied warily. _On cuddling?_

“Well you’ve said it yourself… we haven’t really hung out too much over the last year, so maybe this is just the chance we need to get reacquainted with each other?” Mabel said.

“I thought we did some of that in the car on the way to town?” Dipper said. _Ah, so NOT on cuddling then. Good. I guess._

“Oh c'mon, that was kids stuff. I’m talking the big deep down personal stuff! We used to know everything about each other. Hopes! Dreams! Secrets! Romance!” Mabel said, her voice growing more dramatic yet still cautiously hushed.

 _Secrets? Romance? Definitely not safe topics right now,_ Dipper thought. _Still, it would be nice to just talk for a while without any distractions. Aside from the mortal peril that is._

“Well, I don’t have any better ideas,” Dipper said, “what do you want to know?”

“Ok, umm… why did you pick the college you signed up for?” Mabel asked.

“Not sure that counts as deep down personal stuff Mabel. As for the answer… I don’t know, it was a good school and Mom and Dad looked really proud that I got accepted into it, so I just went for it.” Dipper said.

“Thats it? That’s the only reason you decided that you were going to pack up and move all the way to the other side of the state?” Mabel replied.

“Yeah, pretty much… I don’t actually care one way or another to be honest. I get that college is supposed to be this big adventure – but when you’ve been on actual adventures-” the sound of another distant shriek tore through the air causing them to both freeze for a few beats before Dipper continued in the same casual tone, “-with things like THAT chasing you, moving into a new dorm doesn’t seem like such a big deal.”

“Well why even go at all then if you don’t care?” Mabel said. “Its gonna cost our folks a ton of cash for you to do something you give less than a rats butt about.”

“Well I could say the same for you and art school…” Dipper said before stopping in the face of Mabel’s glare, “…but that would be pretty hypocritical of me. I don’t know, I guess at the time I had just figured it was the next step in life. You know- move out, get a degree, find a job and then just… grind on.”

“You make it sound so depressing. Life can be an adventure anywhere Dip!” Mabel said cheerfully.

“I guess… but after dealing with all _this_ stuff since I was 12 I don’t think that the 'adventure’ of filing papers at a desk for the next 40 years is going to be that mindblowing.” Dipper said glumly.

“That got a lot darker than I was hoping for.” Mabel said quietly.

“I know… its probably just the 'being stuck under a log hoping not to die’ thats doing it. Ok, give me another one – this time I swear I won’t be such a downer.” Dipper replied quickly after he saw the small frown that came to Mabel’s face after his gloomy confession.

“I’m holding you to that Captain Sourpuss.” Mabel said. She screwed up her face in concentration for a second before a glint came in her eye and she said with a grin, “Ok, here’s one even you can’t make totally depressing. The next question: whats the farthest you’ve ever gotten with a girl?”

“What? Oh come on!” Dipper replied indignantly feeling his ears redden.

“Dipper, we are in the sacred shadow of the Honesty Log here – you are honor bound to tell the truth.”

“This isn’t something you talk about with your sister.” Dipper said. _Even, or maybe especially, if you have been having un-brotherly feelings about her._

“Maybe not, but you also said I’m your best friend – and best friends talk about this kind of junk all the time! Hows that for logic?” Mabel said triumphantly.

“Iron clad.” Dipper said through gritted teeth. “Ok… to answer your totally inappropriate question… not too far… like 2nd base, maybe 2nd and a half.”

“How do you even get to 2nd and a half?” Mabel asked.

“You get tagged out before you reach third.” Dipper replied.

“Hah… sports metaphors.” Mabel chuckled.

“Well how about you? How far along the bases have you gone?” Dipper asked. _Do I really want to know that?_

“Uh..” Mabel hesitated with a flush coming to her cheeks. _I didn’t think this through,_ she thought cursing herself.

“C'mon _best friend_ – the Honesty Log and I are waiting.” Dipper replied teasingly.

“Well… I uh… I never _quite_ reached home.” Mabel said, suddenly feeling very shy.

“Oh… so you never..?” Dipper asked slowly. _I was almost sure that she had._

“No! I mean… no. I didn’t even do much on third to be _totally_ honest.” she said quietly.

“Why so?” Dipper asked.

“I don’t know… I’ve dated a couple of guys-” Mabel began.

“You dated a dozen guys.” Dipper said, cutting her off.

“It wasn’t a dozen!” Mabel said shortly, giving him a small yet painful punch in the arm. “Anyway, none of them really felt like they were the _One_ , you know? I mean, most of them were pretty nice but I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go _that_ far with them… so things usually ended when they started wanting to get… you know, hot and heavy but I didn’t. I said 'No’ and then they’d go.” she said the last part in a quiet sing-song voice, sadness evident in her tone.

“They broke up when you didn’t want to get physical? No offense Mabel but you’ve got a horrible taste in guys.” Dipper said indignantly. _When we get back home I’m looking some of those jerks up… well, maybe not that big guy from the football team but DEFINITELY some of them. Hell, maybe even the football guy if I can remember to bring the shrinking crystal with me for once.  
_

 _You have no idea,_ Mabel thought as she found herself feeling what she was sure was _too_ comfortable lying here in her brothers arms. Ever since the afternoon of the 'cheer-up’ hike Dipper had gotten out of his funk, but Mabel had found things had seemed to be changing between them. Her jokes and teasing with Dipper had become more frequent… but also different from normal sisterly teasing. She found herself hugging him more, and poking him and just generally finding excuses to touch him. He hadn’t objected to it either and had even wrestled around a bit with her like they hadn’t done in years which had left them in a giggling sweaty heap that quickly turned to awkwardness when they found themselves staring at one another for what felt like too long. Just last night she’d given him a kiss on the cheek before bed, something she hadn’t really done since they were children sharing a room, and she’d lain under the covers with her heart beating hard in her chest and her mind racing as she came to the realization that she’d been treating Dipper the way she normally treated guys she liked. She found herself looking at him more and sometimes she’d catch his eyes and knew that _he_ was looking at her too, and not the same way he used to. _What’s happening here? Am I really feeling this way about Dipper? Does he know? Its not just me… he’s acting different too… but is he just reacting to me or does he feel it too?_

Things were quiet now in the hollow under the log and Mabel glanced up to see her brother looking down at her and this time when her eyes met his he didn’t look away. _Maybe I am feeling this… s_ he felt her lips part and felt his muscles tense up around her as she started to lean in closer to him, their faces being slowly drawn toward one another. _So what if I am?_ She thought. _Its not anyone’s business who I like…_

The thought was driven from her head by another screech which seemed to fill the whole world and the rustling of branches and leaves around them. The twins sat frozen, their muscles cramping from tension before they were finally able to relax again after nearly five minutes of silence had passed. _Well that killed the mood,_ Mabel thought both relieved and regretful. _I almost kissed him right now… God, what would he even think? This is NOT being a normal sister Mabel._

“So… um… to continue on the theme of catching up; what have you always wanted to do?” Dipper asked, to break the silence.

“What like a job?” Mabel replied shakily.

“No… I mean more like – like what is something that you’ve always wanted to do, something that you would want to do at least once in your life.” Dipper asked.

“You mean before I die?” Mabel asked, her voice heavy.

“Sure, if you want to put it that way.” Dipper replied.

Mabel thought carefully before responding, “Travel. I’d love to go see the world… all those big crazy places that you always see in the news or magazines or whatever. I would love to go and check that stuff out. London, France, Egypt… just see them all.”

Dipper smiled, “Thats a pretty good dream.”

“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna happen if we become bat-food.” Mabel said quietly.

“Well thats not going to happen! I’m not letting any bat hurt you, no matter how giant. We’re getting out of here right now… no more hiding.” Dipper said fiercely. The old knife looked small in his fist, but his grip on it was firm and there was no shaking in his voice now. _Mabel’s counting on you man. Time to step up!_

 _Still the bravest guy I know,_ Mabel thought, _even if he is kind of dorky._

“I’m going to go out first,” Dipper said, “and if the coast looks clear you follow after me, ok?”

“What? Do you think I’m going to let you use yourself as bait!” Mabel said indignantly, “What kind of wuss do you take me for? We go out together or we don’t go out at all.”

“It’s too risky- I don’t want you to get hurt!” he hissed back at her.

“I don’t want you getting hurt either you idiot! That’s why we’re going out together – we can watch each others backs that way. We’re partners here, I’m not your sidekick.” she responded, her voice firm.

Dipper felt a sharp response rise in his throat but he silenced it. _She’s right… we’ll have a better chance if there’s two sets of eyes watching out._ He saw the determined set of Mabels jaw and the way she held her grappling hook in a practiced grip (she’d gotten a lot better with it and hardly ever accidentally broke things now) and felt something stir inside himself. _She’s brave and she’s beautiful and I’m crazy about her and right now I don’t care if that isn’t a normal thought to have. Might as well be honest with myself now since I might not be around for much longer… though who knows about that last part since ghosts apparently exist?_

Wordlessly the twins slid off one another and positioned themselves under the hollow, like sprinters taking their starting positions. They glanced briefly at one another before digging in to take off.

“I love you Mabel.” Dipper said quietly. _There… I said it. Maybe she doesn’t know exactly what I meant but it still feels good to say it anyway._

Mabel felt a strange lightness when she recognized the tone of his voice. _Thats not his normal 'I love you’…_ “I love you too Dipper.” she said with feeling. _I think I really do too._

With a grin on his face Dipper burst out from under the hollow and scrambled up the creek bed, his eyes darting around behind him. No bat in sight! With a grunt of effort he quickly pulled Mabel up the embankment when she began her climb and the two of them started to run again before Mabel’s grip suddenly tightened like a vise on his hand and she pointed forward wordlessly. He followed her finger and saw a huge black form like a human-sized cocoon hanging from a thick branch in a tree above their path. Leathery wings began to open wider than Dipper could have imagined possible and he found himself staring into flat yellow eyes the size of golf balls as the creature cocked its head toward them, a blood red tongue darting out to run over a multitude of ivory colored fangs that were each larger than the knife in his hand.

 _It had been waiting here for us the whole time,_ Dipper realized with his heart sinking in his chest.

“Clever girl…” whispered Mabel in a terrible fake Australian accent and Dipper couldn’t suppress the snort of nervous laughter that burst out at the absurdity of it. Even in the face of almost certain death you couldn’t keep Mabel’s spirit down for long. All panic had left Dipper now and he felt strangely revitalized by his sisters joke.

The creature opened its mouth wide and let out an earsplitting shriek that seemed to rattle Dippers brain in his skull but he was now long past the point of fear and had come all the way around again toward near-suicidal bravado. Kneeling in the leaves of the forest floor Dipper pulled out a fist sized stone and hefted it carefully in his hand before drawing his arm back and letting it fly with all his strength at the bats head. To his surprise the rock connected with a hideous _CRACK_ sound that echoed through the trees and the beasts wings beat frantically as its grip on the branch slackened, sending it crashing to the forest floor in a fountain of dust and scattered leaves. Acting on pure instinct Dipper dropped the tiny knife and grabbed a wrist-thick branch up from the nearby debris pile then charged while the creature was still stunned, gripping the length of termite gnawed wood like a baseball bat. _If I can finish it off now we’re saved!_ Before he could reach it though it had already scrabbled up, using its wings like a pair of extremely long forelegs and it hissed at him with a mouth full of jagged yellow fangs, thick viscous blood streaming down its head over one lemon-drop colored eye. Dipper could see the muscles bunching in its freakish limbs as it tensed to spring at him.

 _This isn’t going to end well,_ Dipper thought in the back of his mind as he braced himself for the bats charge and held his crude club at the ready.

“Run Mabel! I’ll try and hold it off!” he called out without taking his eyes off the monster. _Maybe it’ll get full eating me and she’ll be able to escape safely,_ he thought dizzily. Slobbering lips drew back over a seemingly endless number of teeth and Dipper knew that its charge was only a heartbeat away.

Before the bat could act Dipper heard the familiar bursting sound of Mabels grappling gun firing and saw the thick metal barbs of the hook suddenly appear in the creatures left shoulder as if by magic, sinking deep into the muscle. Dipper darted his eyes over toward his twin and saw that she’d taken position next to the trunk of a tree and had just finished wrapping the other end of the chord around the trunk tightly.

“C'mon! I’m not sure if its strong enough to hold him!” Mabel called as she waved Dipper over frantically and he ran quickly toward her with the bat lumbering after him in enraged pursuit.

“We’re going to find out if it can in a second!” Dipper called back to her when he reached her and she took his hand tightly once more as they pounded forward. Leading him forward Mabel ducked and weaved through the trees, doubling back occasionally with the sound of pursuit at their heels and the deafening panting of the creature drowning out every other sound in the world. _Damn it Mabel, why didn’t you just run!_ Dipper cursed internally as he felt himself braced for the feel of sharp fangs tearing into his back at any second. Suddenly the sound of the creatures jerky footsteps were cut short and the twins heard a sudden pained shriek followed by a loud thump. They turned to see the bat stumbling and brought short, the rope of the grappling hook stretched taut between the branches and trunks of various trees, leaving it unable to move forward. It stared and shrieked at them in rage and futility as they stood panting just beyond its reach.

“Hahaha! I can’t believe that actually worked- I got that idea from a cartoon! We’re alive!” Mabel shouted triumphantly, throwing herself at Dipper and wrapping her arms around his neck. He lifted her up and spun her around laughing in exhilaration as well, all the fight-or-flight chemicals flooding his body making him feel more truly alive than ever. Everything felt better; the breeze in the trees, the leaves crunching underfoot… and Mabel in his arms. The twins stopped their “still alive” celebratory dance and stood panting and holding one another. _I should probably let go now.._ Dipper thought, and then looked down at her face and saw her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed and hair thrown out of place with a few leaves stuck here and there in its glorious chestnut brown length.

 _To hell with it,_ Dipper thought before he suddenly pulled Mabel close to him and brought his lips crashing down to hers. She stood frozen for a second before he felt her arms grip him even tighter and her own lips began to kiss him back fiercely. It was longer, more passionate and wetter than any kiss Dipper could recall from recent memory, and made his disastrous aborted makeout with Wendy seem like getting a peck on his cheek from an elderly aunt. _This is happening,_ he thought as he felt Mabel’s bubblegum flavored tongue running over his lips, _this is happening and she’s kissing me back and I don’t want it to stop._ He twined his fingers through Mabel’s silky hair and she moaned into his mouth in response and brushed her nails along his neck and up his spine, which made him shudder even through the thick canvas fabric of his jacket. They broke their kiss, their breathing fast and heavy as they stared deeply into one another’s eyes.

“So…” Mabel said, “this is happening.”

“Do you want it to stop?” Dipper asked, braced for any answer.

“No. Hell no.” Mabel responded huskily before she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him so aggressively that it nearly sent Dipper stumbling back a step. The dam had burst and all the tension that had built up between them came flooding out, taking them both along with it.

A shriek broke them out of their sudden reverie and they both turned and saw the enormous bat foaming at the mouth and tugging hard at the length of the cord binding it to the trees with a look of pure animal madness in its eyes.

“We should go.” Dipper panted, turning back to look into Mabel’s eyes.

“Yeah… good idea.” She said. A sudden frown creased her brow, “What about my grappling hook though?”

The sound of a branch snapping echoed through the trees like thunder as the giant vampire bat inched itself closer toward the siblings and they both took off in a dead run.

“I’ll buy you a new one!” Dipper yelled back as they made their way clumsily through the thicket.

* * *

It was hours later now. The twins had returned to the shack, tired, covered in dirt, leaves, bruises and scratches and completely out of breath. Stan had grunted a greeting to them from his seat by the television, then informed them that dinner was in the fridge and they had nodded gratefully before heading into the kitchen to eat, starving from their recent exertion. Neither had spoken of the kiss since it had occurred, or had even said much beyond hushed arguments about which direction the Mystery Shack lay as they had wandered back through the forest.

 _She probably just wants to put it behind her,_ Dipper thought _, it was a spur of the moment “I’m still alive!” thing, right?_

He looked up from his reheated stew and saw Mabel meet his eyes briefly before she dropped her gaze back to her own bowl of food. _Why did I have to go and do it? It seemed like a great idea at the time since I’d just survived a monster attack… but now… what if I messed things up between us forever? She kissed me back though. She kissed back and we only stopped because we were worried about getting eaten._ Dipper wasn’t sure which prospect scared him more; the idea that Mabel didn’t reciprocate his feelings, or the now very real possibility that she did. _Either way… things will be different._

Dipper excused himself from the table and took a long hot shower, reveling in the feel of the water running over his sore muscles and wincing at the touch of cheap soap on his various scrapes and cuts. _That was way too close. If Mabel hadn’t been there with the grappling hook I’d be dead by now. We’re always saving each other though… I owe her my life more times than I can count… and I’ve saved her a few times too. I hate seeing her risk herself, but she’s right. We’re partners here._

He dried himself off and made his way to bed silently, lying back on the horrible old mattress and staring up at the familiar mold patches on the ceiling. He heard the rush of water through the pipes below as Mabel took her own shower and he tried, with difficulty, not to picture how she probably looked right now with the soapy water running over her bare skin. _Curse my teenage hormones._

It wasn’t long before he heard the sound of her footsteps coming up the creaking stairs and he felt his throat go dry and his heart catch in his chest. _What if she hates me now? What if I really did mess everything up? What if she won’t want to be there to be my partner on weird adventures, or joke around with me about dumb stuff or even want to hang out at all anymore? What if I really have lost her now…_

The door creaked open and he turned to see Mabel standing in the frame by the light of the old oil lantern, her hair in two damp braids and wearing her colorful pajamas covered in cartoon pigs. _I got those for her last Christmas,_ Dipper thought to himself absentmindedly as she closed the door quietly and sat down on her own bed across from his, facing him. For a moment there was silence.

“You know, you’re a pretty good kisser Dip.” Mabel said.

“Um… thanks. You too.” he replied. Silence ticked on for a few beats. _Say something you coward!_ he cursed himself.

“Heh… awkward.” Mabel said with a short chuckle before she continued. “So.. how long have you… felt.. this?”

“A while now. Sorry.” he said quietly.

“Sorry for what?” she asked.

“For feeling… un-brotherly things about you… I know its weird or wrong or whatever… Just.. sorry.”

“Well in that case I guess I should be sorry too. For feeling un-sisterly things about you.”

“You do? I mean… you are? Or you did?” Dipper asked, his heart suddenly racing in his chest and his words coming out in a jumble.

“Yeah… except I’m not really sorry. I don’t think you should be either.” Mabel said, boldness creeping into her voice.

“So… you don’t think its… wrong?” Dipper asked slowly.

“Maybe it is. But it doesn’t _feel_ wrong to me. Not in any way that matters. I had at first… but after today… after I almost lost you because of that bat - I don’t care anymore if anyone thinks its wrong. Its how I feel.” Mabel said, and Dipper could see on her face just how much that admission had meant to her.

“I don’t really think that it feels wrong either. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I love you. I’ve always loved you, but I’m _in_ love with you too now. I’m not sure when it started… but it feels strong and real and I don’t want it to stop.” Dipper said, his voice gaining strength as he felt the weight of his secret lifted away like a boulder being pushed off his chest.

“What should we do about it?” Mabel asked. Her voice was quietly casual, but he could see the way her hands were toying with her bedspread nervously.

 _Now or never,_ Dipper thought to himself. The rusted old bedsprings creaked as he sat up and got to his feet, walking toward her slowly. Mabel looked up at him, her eyes wide and Dipper felt his nerves jangling as he took in the sight of her. He’d faced monsters, demons, gnomes & the fearful spectacle of Grunkle Stan in his underclothes but nothing so far had filled him with as much panic as the sight of her beautiful face looking at him expectantly now. He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand before bending down to plant a kiss on her lips, slow and gentle with none of the adrenaline fueled ferocity of their earlier exploration and he felt Mabel’s soft cool hands reach out to stroke his face as she responded with intensity. The kiss broke off slowly and he smiled down at her, a truly free and happy smile like he hadn’t been able to feel in days.

“Would you want to go out with me?” Dipper asked, playfulness in his tone but also an honesty there that made Mabel’s own heart skip a beat to hear.

“Yeah. I’d like that a lot.” she replied with a big goofy grin of her own before she pulled him back to her for another, longer kiss.

From the shadows of the nearby vent the severed head of Wax Larry King stared on, its glassy eyes widening at the scene playing out below. Turning slowly, it awkwardly shambled its way back through the ducts. “Kids these days.” It muttered quietly to itself. _  
_


	7. Chapter 6

_June 28 th_

In some ways it was the things that _didn’t_ change that had surprised Dipper the most about this strange new territory that he and Mabel had found themselves in after they had opened themselves up to one another that night and entered this phase in their relationship. They still joked easily with one another, found themselves falling into ridiculous conversations, got into absentminded arguments about completely irrelevant things… their old sibling bond seemed just as strong as it ever was but that just made the new differences feel even more significant and, Dipper had to admit, all the sweeter to him. Those secret sidelong glances they shared, as if they were kids again in their first real relationships. Feeling her hand slide into his under the blankets as they watched a cheesy monster movie in the living room on a chilly night. The secret kisses stolen when they found themselves alone that always set his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. Having her pressed up against him as they lay spooning in his bed in the quiet hours of the night when they were sure that they wouldn’t be disturbed, with the scent of her hair seeming to fill his whole world. True, they hadn’t really gone very far in the physical aspect of their relationship beyond some very intense making out… but neither of them had pressed the issue of going further yet, partly because of the newness of it all and partly because of the mutual unspoken fear of being discovered. _All good things in their own time… and its not like things haven’t been fantastic as it is,_ Dipper found himself thinking and felt his palms grow slightly sweaty with the memory of the night before, particularly the sight of Mabel’s face with her eyelids fluttering and her bottom lip clenched in her teeth to muffle a slight moan as he’d run a trail of kisses along the sensitive skin of her neck. Nothing had compared with seeing that look coming into her face and knowing that _he_ was able to give her that feeling. Suddenly conscious of himself Dipper shook the memory from his head and remembered that he was still supposed to be in the middle of the chore of hauling in more merchandise from the attic to re-stock the shelves of the gift shop.

 _To think that I’d been fighting all this… that I’d been terrified of these feelings. I probably would never have told her if it hadn’t been for that whole “almost being eaten alive by a monster” thing. Amazing how a little near-death experience can put everything into perspective,_ Dipper thought to himself as he manhandled the heavy cardboard box through the doorway of the gift shop and set it down with a grunt before pausing to try and massage some life back into his arms. He looked up and caught the sight of Mabel joking around with an elderly customer from behind the counter of the gift shop and felt a small smile creep across his face hearing her distinct laugh. Objectively it wasn’t an especially musical sound, but it had taken on a very special quality to him lately and he’d taken a new pleasure in coaxing it from her when they managed to find time to be alone with one another. He had to admit he didn’t have too much practice acting “boyfriend-ish”, but things had just been going so well that he still couldn’t really believe that this was all happening to him. Mabel glanced up at Dipper over the tourists shoulder and gave him a quick look with a smile in her eyes that he knew was just for him. As the customer looked down to dig into his pockets for some change she threw all subtlety out the window and gave Dipper an exaggerated wink while blowing a quick kiss at him that caused his heart to skip a beat, despite the goofiness of it all. Dipper coughed and felt the tips of his ears start to burn slightly which just made Mabel’s grin widen in response. _Curse my natural bashfulness!_

Dipper quickly turned away when the man had finally finished digging through their pockets for money to pay for his purchase and set to work unpacking the goods from the box and started setting them up on the shelves. _Focus here Dipper,_ he thought, _gotta try and act MOSTLY normal around the Shack. At least during the daytime when other people are around._ He tried, unsuccessfully, to lose himself in the task at hand but couldn’t keep his mind from drifting back to Mabel. Tonight was going to be something special after all, because they had decided that this was going to be the night of The Date (Dipper always inserted the mental capital letters whenever he’d found himself thinking of it). _Just a few more hours here and it’ll be time. Here’s hoping it all goes as planned._

* * *

The whole subject of The Date had come up a few nights ago as the twins had lain in Dippers bed, with Mabel resting her head on his bare chest and his arm wrapped loosely over her, idly running his hand over the smooth skin of her shoulder. It had been a busy day and they were enjoying the silence of the attic and one another’s company after the rushing around of all the tours and chores necessary to keep the Mystery Shack running in semi-working order, and when the house had finally grown silent she’d slipped herself in under the covers beside him without a word. It hadn’t taken long for the warmth of Mabel’s breath on Dippers skin and the feel of her weight gently resting on him to set his blood pounding in his ears (among other places) and he’d felt bold enough to make the first move that night, shifting himself about to bring her face level to his and pressing his lips to hers. She had sighed softly and kissed back, but kept it light and teasing, nipping his lip between her teeth and running her fingers along his scalp which caused him to shudder. He had started to pull her in closer to himself, but he felt her small hand press on his chest to hold him back and he stopped, confused.

“Whats up Mabel?” he asked, concern in his voice.

“Well… I’d just been thinking… you’re my boyfriend, right?” Mabel had asked slowly.

“Of course. I mean, I’m not really sure there’s a term for… this, but I think boyfriend fits pretty well. I’d hope so anyway, after all the kissing and declarations of love and whatnot.” Dipper had joked, but with an edge of nervousness in his voice. _I knew this was too good to be true… I hope this isn’t anything serious…Gah, calm down you weirdo, pretty sure this isn’t a breakup speech, you’ve heard enough of those to know the difference._

“Well its just… it’s not that Midnight Makeout times haven’t been awesome- because trust me they very much have been… but I was thinking that we’ve been ‘going out’ for a while but haven’t really been out-out. You know, like on a date.” Mabel replied.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s true… would you want to?” Dipper asked slowly. _Oh thank god. See, I told me I had to stop worrying. I really need to stop talking to myself so much, its getting kind of creepy._

“Well yeah! I’m a classy lady Dipper, I need to be romanced occasionally.” she said dramatically, rolling the 'r’s in 'romanced’ to a ridiculous degree, causing him to chuckle. “I mean the privacy of the attic is nice and all, but the spiders and moldy spots don’t add much to the ambiance… unless you’re totally into that kind of thing of course?” she said with a playful note of questioning accusation in her voice.

Dipper glanced around at the cobwebs festooning the ceiling and the drips of water pattering down from the rusty pipes running along the beams with a newly critical eye. “Fair enough, we have pretty much been making out in a low-rent haunted house for a while… well… what would you want to do?” he asked.

“Have a night out on the town – just you and me! I’ll leave the details up to you though, I feel like being surprised.”

“Heh, no problem! I’m sure I’ll come up with something fun.” _Crap… what do you do on a real date? Pretty much every girl I went out with in high school just wanted to hang out and watch TV and then maybe kiss a little. This will take some planning. Not to mention the whole 'We’re siblings’ thing, which the townsfolk might not be so keen on._

“Nothing supernatural though,” she warned him jokingly, digging a finger into his ribs, “just a nice normal date. No 'Para-’ involved.”

“That might be hard to pull off in this town,” Dipper joked back, “but I think I can manage. I’ll let you know when I’ve got it all set up.”

“Great! Can’t wait to see your boyfriend skills in action.” Mabel said playfully. “Speaking of which,” she continued with a warm note coming into her voice, “where were we before I interrupted?” Before Dipper could answer Mabel pulled her lips to his again suddenly, kissing him with a heat that surprised him and he felt himself getting lost in the moment, all worries about date planning blasted out of his mind for the time.

* * *

Evening had fallen now over the Mystery Shack and the museum section of the old building had already been closed to business for the day. Stan had gone out for the night to a meeting of the mysterious Lodge that he mentioned every now and then and Mabel was currently examining herself critically in the mirror. She wasn’t really a makeup-and-heels kind of girl most of the time but she’d found herself feeling the urge to get dressy for the big night and had settled on a short plum colored dress that showed a lot more leg than she usually did and left her arms bare to the shoulders. _I really hope I haven’t been pressing the whole date issue too much,_ she thought to herself as experimented with different head bands for effect. _Its not like its even_ that _big of a deal… I mean, whatever this is that we have has been great. He’s sweet, he’s caring… he’s surprisingly sexy when he wants to be even if he doesn’t know it. I mean, hands down he’s the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. Its just…_ Mabel sighed to herself… _the sneaking._

Though she hadn’t voiced it to Dipper, because she knew he’d totally freak out and probably worry himself sick about her, she had to admit that all the sneaking around had been kind of getting to her. Mabel wasn’t a terribly good liar and while she loved Dipper, and loved knowing that he loved her back, the fact that they had to keep it all a secret from _everyone_ had just stressed her out somewhat. She wanted to feel like a normal girl and go out on a normal date with her boyfriend, even if this particular situation was admittedly anything but normal. The fact that Dipper, paranoid _paranoid_ Dipper, had agreed in the first place to a night on the town in public with her had just cemented in her heart how much this must have meant to him. How much _she_ meant to him. _A guy like that’s worth a little sneaking around for,_ she thought with a smile. She gave herself a final once over in the mirror and nodded, satisfied with her look at last and took a deep breath, _now or never!_

“Hey Dipper, you ready to go yet?” she called out as she exited the room and heard him call back an affirmative from downstairs. Mabel made her way out of the attic and headed down to the parlor and saw Dipper sitting on the couch, absentmindedly watching TV but with his knee jangling in that way she knew he did when he was nervous. He still hadn’t caught sight of her yet and as she looked him over she noticed that the ever-casual Dipper appeared to have made an effort to get himself dressed up for the night. True, he still had his old blue cap on but it would take a crowbar to separate him from at least some kind of head covering while in public due to his shyness about his birthmark. _Better do something to break the ice,_ Mabel thought, _I don’t want him to be crazy nervous all night._

“Ta-da!” she called out dramatically, startling Dipper and causing him to jump in his chair before turning to her quickly. The look of annoyed surprise on his face was instantly replaced by one of wide eyed admiration when he caught sight of her and Mabel felt a blush come to her cheeks when she saw his feelings written so plainly on his face. _Maybe I overdressed for tonight?_

“Mabel you look… gorgeous.” Dipper said softly with a slow quiet smile coming onto his face and Mabel felt her cheeks redden even further.

“Oh, I’m alright,” she joked nervously to deflect her sudden shyness, “but who is this radiant vision I see before me?” she asked in her best Drama Club faux-Shakespearean tone, “A shirt with long sleeves and buttons? _Clean_ pants? Clothing colors that match your jacket? Who are you, beautiful stranger, and what have you done with my brother?”

“Cute. Real cute Mabel.” Dipper replied in an easy bantering tone, and Mabel heard the nervousness start to melt out of his voice.

“Thank you! I think its the kitten earrings that really tie the whole outfit together, don’t you agree?” she asked as she patted her hair with a flourish.

Dipper had risen to his feet and walked over to her slowly while she was exaggeratedly primping and Mabel felt her heart start to flutter in her chest as he drew close to her and cupped her face in his hand before bending down to plant a slow kiss on her lips that left her weak in the knees. _So much for getting the upper hand,_ she thought with a sigh of contentment, _but at least he’s definitely not nervous right now_.

“Oh yeah, its definitely the earrings.” he said with a grin. _God she’s beautiful._ “Well, shall we go? Our rusty blue chariot awaits.”

“But of course, Sir Dipping-sauce. The night is young, and so are we!” she said with a laugh. “But first, I need you to hand it over.”

“Hand what over?” Dipper asked, confusion plain in his voice.

“The, no doubt, super-detailed list that I’m positive that you have on you to make sure that tonight goes perfect.” Mabel replied, holding out her hand toward him with the palm up.

“Mabel, I’m eighteen years old, not some lovestruck preteen kid. C'mon, do you really think I would still do something like that?” he asked, exasperation evident in his tone.

Mabel said nothing but instead raised an eyebrow and cocked her fingers twice at him. Dipper stood silent for a moment before he sighed, reached into the sleeve of his jacket and pulled out a well folded sheet of paper which he then dropped into his sisters open hand. Mabel nodded, satisfied, and slipped the paper into her purse.

“Alright, now give me the real list. This was obviously the decoy that you knew I’d ask for.”

“Mabel, please give me a just a little credit here-” he began but stopped when she gave him a knowing smile and he muttered quietly to himself before removing his hat and handing her another identical sheet of paper.

“You’re good, you know that, right?” Dipper said as Mabel dropped the second list into her purse next to the first.

“Alpha twin.” she said smugly with a smile, “Now c'mon, lets just go relax and have some fun!”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” Dipper replied with an easy smile of his own. _Good thing she didn’t ask about the third list. Maybe I DO have a problem?_

* * *

The drive into town went by quickly and the Pines soon found themselves in the heart of Gravity Falls, if the intersection of the two smallish main streets could really be said to be something so grand. Dipper pulled up and parked the car along the street and opened the door on Mabel’s side before helping her out. It was a Friday night so unlike most evenings in the sleepy little town there was actually a moderate amount of activity going on.

“So, whats on the agenda for tonight boyfriend?” Mabel asked playfully as Dipper fed a few quarters into the parking meter.

“Well, you said you wanted something nice and normal – so I thought maybe dinner and a movie? You can’t really get much more normal than that.” Dipper replied.

“Sounds great, I’m starving! You can really only eat so much of Grunkle Stans cooking before you feel the urge to have something that tastes like it wasn’t canned before the Korean War.”

“Would you want to eat at the Club? Its kind of pricey, but I heard good things about them – and we still have plenty of vacation money left if we want to splurge a bit.” Dipper asked. _Plus we don’t really know anyone who would eat there, so its good cover,_ he thought privately.

“Lead the way! I was always curious about that place. Such a fun shaped building too!” Mabel said cheerfully.

The two made their way down the main street toward the restaurant, chatting easily and before long their steps fell into perfect synchronization like they always did, and they found themselves being unconsciously drawn to walking closer together. With his heart pounding hard in his chest Dipper reached out his hand and found Mabel’s, giving it a small squeeze and she glanced up at him and smiled. _Well, I’m holding her hand out in public. True, most people in town don’t really know who we are but it still feels like a big step._

The doorman at the Club had looked over the pair in that snooty way that only the low-paid employees of fancy places could give, but when Dipper pointed out the reservation made days ago under “D. Pines” the man relented and let them through into the building and they found themselves in a plush booth and with menus that appeared to have misplaced their decimal points in the pricing. _I may have overestimated our funds somewhat,_ Dipper thought nervously as he scanned through the menu to try and find a single course that didn’t cost more than what they made in a week at the Mystery Shack. Mabel was 'ooh-ing’ and 'aaah-ing’ over the atmosphere (“Free bread? Bubbly water? This is classy as heck!”), and the sight of her enjoying herself relaxed Dipper somewhat. Money might not be much of a problem for long if he could just get the finishing touches on his plan going after all. _Still have to work out some kinks though… like what Mabel would think._

The pair made their order and after the waiter had glided off Dipper found himself looking across the ornate candelabra into Mabel’s smiling face and felt himself starting to really relax at seeing her cheerful expression. _Maybe I don’t really need the list after all._

“So,” Dipper began, “I’m, uh, not really sure about the protocol for first date gifts, but I got you something.”

“Dipper, you shouldn’t have.” Mabel said with a smile. _He can be pretty cute when he gets awkward._

“Well, maybe I shouldn’t have but I did anyway.” he said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out an oblong box wrapped in gold colored paper and passing it across the table to her.

Mabel took the box in her hands and felt a familiar weight that caused her to squeal, loudly, with joy and she began to tear into the packaging like a hungry dog. A few of the restaurant patrons turned to glance their way but quickly turned back after seeing Dipper glare at them with a furious scowl.

“A new grappling hook!” she squeaked. “Where did you even get this? I thought Grunkle Stan had to stop selling them after all those lawsuits!”

“He did, but I found one up in the boxes of old merchandise last week… it was broken but I managed to fix it up good as new in my spare time with a little help from Soos.”

“This is the best! I’ve felt naked without this thing.” Mabel said as she twirled the bulky device in her hand like a gunfighter in a bad western.

“Well, careful with it while we’re in this place. I don’t think we could afford to fix anything here if something gets broken.” _I think the chair I’m sitting in probably cost more than my car. Then again lots of things cost more than my car._

“Such a worry-wart.” Mabel said playfully before slipping the machine into her purse with ease despite the fact that it seemed far too large to fit at first glance. “Seriously though… I love it. Thank you.”

“Hey, I never know when you might need it to save my butt again.” Dipper joked.

“Well you just better make sure you keep your butt out of mortal danger… it was seriously scary how close things got last time. Sometimes I still wake up at night remembering… wondering what would have happened if the rope hadn’t held.” Mabel said quietly.

“I know.” Dipper said softly. _I can’t let anything get that close to hurting you again. Never._

“Blah – ok its getting a little too real here. Time for some first-date type conversation.” Mabel said playfully, shaking off the somberness from her voice. “Tell me Mr. Pines, what is it that you do?”

“Oh, well currently I’m in the entertainment industry.” Dipper said quickly, picking up on Mabel’s tone.

“Interesting! So, what does that mean exactly? Acting? Music?” Mabel continued.

“I give guided tours through my great-uncles tourist trap museum that I also live above.”

“Fascinating. Any hobbies?”

“Well, I’ve got quite an interest in the paranormal. Mysteries also.”

“Mysteries, like a detective? Sexy.” Mabel said with an exaggerated kittenish meow at the end of the sentence. “Solve any good ones lately?”

“Well my friend Soos and I thought that we’d discovered the magic valley of the leprechauns last week.” Dipper said brightly.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but it turned out to just be another bunch of gnomes.” Dipper said with disappointment.

“I hate when that happens.” Mabel nodded sympathetically.

“They were real jerks about it too. Ended up chasing us through the forest till we lost them across a river. You should see them try to swim with those stubby little arms of theirs.” Dipper added with a chuckle.

“Wait, is this something that actually happened or just more fake date-banter?” Mabel said with a note of confusion in her voice.

“Totally real. You were off with Candy and Grenda that day I think, otherwise I definitely would have wanted you along – the pictures I take never seem to come out right compared to yours.”

“I’m pretty okay with avoiding the gnomes actually. I mean, they wanted to marry me when I was a gawky twelve year old, so I’m pretty sure now that I’m grown that they couldn’t keep themselves away from all this.” she said as she gestured to herself with a cartoonishly saucy waggle of her eyebrows.

“Well they’d have to go through me first,” Dipper said with an exaggerated bravado. “Any creepy little fairy-thing that tries to lay a hand on my girlfriend will have a lot more than leaf blowers to worry about.”

“So bold!” Mabel said with a false swoon that set them both laughing until the annoyed waiter had arrived bearing their food and the twins cut their conversation short to enjoy the extremely over-priced but very delicious meal that they had ordered.

* * *

Dinner had gone extremely well all around, though Dipper had winced at the thought of how much of his vacation fund had gotten used up with just that one meal. Mabel had jokingly, or maybe not so jokingly considering it was Mabel, offered to perform a grappling hook assisted dine and dash with him but he’d declined politely in favor of not spending the evening in police custody.

 _Maybe I should have taken her up on it though,_ he thought as he slipped his significantly thinner wallet into his back pocket before taking Mabel’s arm and leading them out the restaurant and back into the street.

“So, it was going to be a movie next, right?” Mabel asked as they walked along together, enjoying the cool evening air and one another’s company.

“That’s the plan – I’m pretty sure I still have enough on me to cover it… just don’t ask for the extra large popcorn.” Dipper joked.

“No worries bro, the pictures are on me tonight.” Mabel said. She paused and turned to glance over at a knot of young people chatting near the entrance of the arcade, “Speaking of which – give me second.”

Dipper watched, confused, as Mabel ran over toward the small group and grabbed hold of a young guy in a mohawk who looked about their own age and threw her arm over his neck as she posed herself next to him with an enormous fake grin. He seemed extremely confused as Mabel pulled her phone from her purse and quickly snapped several pictures of them together before she ran back over to Dipper. The guy returned to his friends shaking his head with a blank look on his face, the usual reaction most guys had when they found themselves suddenly struck by Hurricane Mabel.

“Who was that?” Dipper asked.

“He’s Charlie. He likes skateboarding and horses. He works in his dads hardware store and we met at the arcade. We’re madly in love, but I think he’s going to break my heart before the end of the summer and I’ll be too distraught to date for a while.” Mabel said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, okay. No, but really who was that?” Dipper said, even more confused than before.

“I dunno, but as far as mom’s going to know he’s my new boyfriend while I’m up here for the summer. She’s always asking about that kind of stuff.” Mabel said.

“Thats actually a pretty clever plan.” Dipper said, impressed.

“Well I make plans too you know, I just don’t write them down into huge lists.” Mabel said.

“Do you think I should get a fake girlfriend for cover too?” Dipper asked playfully.

“I think it might be more believable if you didn’t.” Mabel teased.

“Ouch. What, are you saying that girls aren’t into me?” Dipper replied while clutching his chest as if wounded.

“Well if they are then they better back off right now – Mabel P. don’t share her man!” Mabel said with mock sternness.

“So I’m your man now?”

“Yup. Gotta make it official though. Maybe we could get you a big ’M’ tattoo right on your butt?” she said in a thoughtful way while tapping her chin.

“This is getting way too kinky for me.”

“Spoilsport.” Mabel replied, sticking out her tongue.

Before long the pair found themselves outside the Gravity Falls Cineplex, which Dipper had always felt was a much too bombastic name for an old theater that only had 4 screens and got their movies months behind the rest of the country.

“Well, since you’re the one paying – what do you think we should see?” Dipper asked, glancing over at the small number of available choices.

“Oooh, how about ’ _Time Enough For Love’_? I never got to catch that one when it was in theaters back home.” Mabel said, pointing to the poster for what looked like the blandest romantic comedy Dipper could have imagined.

“Eh I dunno… a romantic comedy Mabel?” he said hesitantly.

“Weeellll, if you aren’t into that the only other movie playing right now is ’ _Evil Doll IV: Murderous Marionette Mayhem’._ How does that one sound?” she asked, pointing out a poster which showed a ventriloquist dummy clutching a bloody butcher knife.

Dipper felt the sweat bead on his forehead as he stared into the cold lifeless eyes of the puppet on the poster and Mabel saw his pupils shrink down till they seemed to be the size of pinholes.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I remember hearing lots of good things about _'Time Enough For Love’_ , totally worth giving it a chance.” Dipper said stiffly with a nervous chuckle.

“I still don’t see how someone who fought a bloodsucking monster with just a stick can be so scared of puppets.” Mabel teased.

“I’m not scared of puppets… they just creep me out a lot. There’s a difference.” Dipper muttered defensively.

“Sure thing crazy, I’ll go get us the tickets.” Mabel said with a smile.

The theater was mostly empty, with the only other patrons being an elderly couple sitting far in the front row and Mabel had lead Dipper by the hand up to her favorite seats up in the very furthest back row. The movie turned out not to be as terrible as Dipper had feared it would be. The acting was decent in parts and there was actually a somewhat interesting time travel plot involved that he’d found himself being unconsciously drawn toward. Mabel had ordered only a single large bucket of popcorn and had placed it between them to share, so that it was practically inevitable that their buttery hands would end up touching throughout the movie. Naturally this lead to hand holding, which of course escalated into making out furiously in the darkened privacy of the theater with Dipper’s heart pounding hard in his chest at the realization that he was _kissing_ Mabel in public. This was the first real kiss they had shared since the day of the bat-attack that wasn’t done in the locked-door privacy of their shared attic room and though he couldn’t stop the paranoia from triggering in the back of his mind he was also just exulting in the feeling of Mabel’s lips against his, of hearing her soft sighs close and hot in his ear and of the scent of her floral shampoo mingling with the artificial butter of the popcorn they’d just been eating. They had completely lost track of the plot of the movie before long and were each totally surprised when the theater lights came up again as the ending credits played, the both of them flustered and disheveled from their recent distraction. The old couple in the front had already gone and they were left alone in the dim theater with their eyes stinging from the light.

“Good movie.” Dipper panted with a blush coming to his face at the realization that they both probably looked like sort of a mess right now. He brushed stray popcorn kernels from his jacket as he rose to his feet and helped Mabel up from her seat.

“Definitely,” Mabel replied, “Can’t wait for the sequel.” she added with a wink as she straightened out her hair.

“Me too.” Dipper flirted back, “When do you think its coming out?”

“That depends,” Mabel said as she picked herself up on tip-toes and whispered silkily in Dippers ear, “how fast do you think you can drive your car back to the shack?”

Dippers eyes widened slightly as he caught the sight of Mabel looking up at him with her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyes shining with a combination of shyness and boldness that struck him right to the core. _Is she saying what I think she’s saying? Does she want to…_

“Fast.” He said quickly. “Very fast.” he took her hand and they both started jogging out of the theater lobby giggling, making their way down the street and back to the car.

* * *

The house had been empty when they had arrived back home with Dippers tires screeching to a halt in the old dirt lot of the Mystery Shack and the twins had practically dragged one another up the stairs to their attic room. The heat from the theater hadn’t yet left them and Dipper had felt like his veins were practically pumping fire as he took in the sight of Mabel by the flickering light of the old oil lamp that rested on the table between their beds. She had kicked off her shoes and stood there in the center of the room, her shoulders trembling slightly as Dipper had come toward her after locking the door, nervousness plainly battling with arousal on her face and he was sure that his own expression was a mirror to hers.

Neither of them had spoken yet as Dipper pulled her toward him and placed a soft wet kiss on the crook of her neck and shoulder that sent a small shudder through her frame and he whispered reassuringly in her ear, “No pressure Mabel… okay?”

He felt Mabel’s trembling stop and her arms circled him tightly as she brought her mouth to his with fierce energy. Before long Dipper felt her pushing him back until he almost fell over the edge of his bed, with Mabel climbing up to straddle him as he looked up in mild surprise. “None whatsoever,” she whispered back at him with a hot breath in his ear before taking his earlobe between her teeth and nibbling it, “I want this. I want _you.”_

 _Can’t get a much clearer invitation than that_ , Dipper thought to himself light-headedly as he crushed Mabel to him, their lips smacking wetly together and their hands roaming over each others clothed bodies, frantically loosening buttons, fiddling with straps & performing all the other ridiculous gymnastics that two extremely horny teens need to do to get one another naked. Everything was so much _realer_ than it had been when Dipper had pictured this moment in his mind, and he had pictured it VERY often since the night that Mabel had become his girlfriend. He found himself grinning up at the sight of her, still straddling his hips with her own as she lifted the dark purple dress up over her head and slipped off her zebra-printed bra with a flourish like a magician performing an elaborate card trick. _Even if I get to see her like this a million times I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it,_ Dipper thought as he drank in the way the soft gold light of the lantern highlighted the curves of Mabel’s small round breasts and traced down her sides to her smooth curvy hips. He ran a hand slowly up from her thigh to her ribs and he felt Mabel grab his wrist and trace his palm up around her side and to her breast with a grin, enjoying the way that she flustered him so. Mabel bent low onto him and they were kissing again, harder and with more need than they had earlier. Dipper found himself pushing further than he ever had before, running his hands over the smooth expanse of exposed skin, caressing her supple breasts, running them down the curve of her back and cupping her round butt in his hands before squeezing hard enough to elicit a loud moan from Mabel.

“No fair,” she gasped into his ear, “I’m totally exposed here and you’re still mostly dressed.”

“I can fix that.” Dipper panted back before he rolled to the side to start kicking off his pants, his shirt and jacket having been thrown aside long ago. He was suddenly conscious of the way Mabel was looking at him expectantly and felt his ears redden slightly.

“Mmmm, go on – Mabel wants a show.” she said with a wide grin and Dipper laughed nervously as he slid his clothes off, totally naked now for the first time in front of her. To his surprise he felt her small cool hand reach out and grip him loosely and she said jokingly, “You haven’t been using that magic flashlight have you?”

“Um… nope… 100% all natural Dipper.” he chuckled nervously. _God that feels so good! Wait, would the flashlight even work for that? Shut up brain, its sexy time!_

“Nice! Good to see that I would have been packing one if I was a guy.” Mabel joked nervously as she stroked him slowly. He reached out and caught her wrist in his hand, pulling her grip off him. _What’s he up to? s_ he wondered.

 _Time for that later… right now I want to take care of you,_ Dipper thought as he pushed Mabel gently back down onto the bed and gripped her wrists in his hands, holding her down with slight pressure as he brought his mouth down over her breast and nipped it gently causing her to gasp. He released his grip on her arms and felt her hands reach out to stroke his hair, running her nails down his neck and across his upper back. He didn’t stay long before he started to trace a slow wet trail of kisses and licks down her torso, over her taut belly and finally found himself between her thighs for the first time with her fingers twined so tightly in his hair that it brought tears to the corner of his eyes. She was gasping loudly now, muttering a bunch of half-formed words and making sounds that he had NEVER heard her make before and all of it was just sending Dippers mind into a whirl. Just when he thought things had reached a pitch she seemed to find some new high until he felt her legs clamp down on his head and heard her gasping out what sounded like “dontstopdontstopdontstop” over and over again until she let out a muffled wail and collapsed shuddering back onto the bed. Dipper shook himself and rose bleary-eyed, his jaw feeling like it was about ready to fall off from the unaccustomed exercise. He looked up and saw Mabel lying back with an expression of faraway bliss on her face, her skin slick with sweat and her silky chestnut hair thrown every which way. He thought to himself that she had never looked more beautiful to him than she did at this moment and he bent down to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.

Mabel’s eyes snapped back into focus and she gave Dipper a smoldering look that set his already racing heart skipping along before she rose up and crawled across the bed to him, shoving him onto his back and straddling him once more with a look in her eyes that he’d never seen before.

“We’re not done here yet..” she whispered to him huskily as he felt her reach down and move him into place before lowering herself down, causing him to groan out loudly, “My turn!” she gasped as she sank down until their hips met.

They moved together with an awkward rhythm at first, still feeling out every new sensation, every unfamiliar motion but before long Dipper found himself grunting and gripping the bedspread in a white knuckled grasp as Mabel had gotten herself adjusted and had begun to move on him with a new confidence, rolling her hips in a way that made his teeth clench and his eyes roll back into his head. _How can people stand to do something that feels this good?_ He thought dreamily, _How can they ever STOP doing something that feels this good?_

He heard Mabel moaning loudly again and felt that he was being pushed to an edge. He reached out and grasped her hips tightly, loving the feel of the way the muscles in her thighs moved under her skin as she rode him and he started to buck up to meet her, which seemed to be having quite an effect judging by the way her moans intensified. _Ah… gotta hold on… not yet… not yet…_ he thought falteringly as he felt the pressure growing inside like a rubber band being pulled taut. He felt a soft sweat slick hand touch his face and looked up to see Mabel staring him in the eyes, her expression misty and faraway.

“Its ok,” she gasped out with a nod, “you can do it.”

 _Oh thank god,_ he thought as he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her down to him, crushing her mouth to his in a long kiss as he felt himself explode, a feeling like fireworks behind his eyes as Mabel moaned loudly into his mouth and dug her own nails deep into his shoulder.

They stayed in a panting heap for uncounted minutes, each hugging onto the other tightly before Mabel slid herself off him and rested herself across his chest with a deep and utterly contented sigh.

 _We just did that. It. Sex. I’m not a virgin anymore._ Dipper thought to himself, confusion and wonder mixing in his bemused mind.

“I love you.” Mabel said quietly and Dipper felt something huge and hot and grand rise up in his chest.

“I love you too Mabel.” Dipper said, “More than anything.”

“Even more than mysteries?” Mabel said with a quiet humor.

“More than every mystery and paranormal thing on earth put together.” Dipper said honestly.

“Good.” she said with a contented sigh.

“So… how was that for a first date?” Dipper asked in a quietly playful tone.

“A-plus,” Mabel said, “quality boyfriend material right here. Especially the end.”

“Oh definitely. Definitely my favorite part too.” Dipper said with a laugh.

“I think we could do better though,” she said with a smile, “so we should get more practice in.”

“No objections from me.” Dipper said.

Things were quiet before Dipper felt Mabel shift on his chest and turn to look him directly in the face and he saw a wetness in her eyes

“Seriously though… thanks for tonight. I know how much of a big deal it is for you to take me out. How much you worry about… you know.. people finding out.” she said with a slight catch in her voice.

“Hey, its their problem if they have a problem with us. I’m not ashamed of what we have.” Dipper said, and found that he was speaking a truth that even he hadn’t been able to voice to himself.

“I know… but I know why we have to keep it a secret too.. I just don’t want everyone to treat us like we’re those evil twins from _Game of Thrones_.” she said with a sigh.

“Wait, how do you even know about that?” Dipper said with confusion, “You made fun of me when I downloaded that!”

“Well yeah, because its like ’ _The Hobbit_ ’ for giant pervs.” Mabel said playfully. “I… um… I kinda watched it too. Behind your back.”

“Sneaky, sis.” Dipper said with a chuckle. He felt himself pause mentally as mention of the show set off strange alarm bells in his head, “Um… so I noticed that… earlier… we didn’t use any kind of.. you know… protection.”

“Pffft, relax Dipper. I aced sex-ed, remember? Today is one of my safe days.”

“Oh… well, thats good.” he said with relief.

“Yep, I’m 60% positive that today is totally safe. Its the 25th, right?”

Dipper felt his face settle into a rictus grin and he chuckled nervously. _She’s just teasing me, right? Has to be._ Silence ticked on for a few moments more and he felt sweat bead on his forehead.

“I’m just messing with you dork! Calm down.” Mabel said with a laugh as she snuggled into his chest and he tried not to let out too audible a gasp of relief.

“Sooo…” Mabel said slowly, “what do you think of the name Joffrey for a boy?”

“Not funny!” Dipper said as he smacked Mabel gently in the face with a pillow and the twins found themselves in a giggling heap wrestling around like they were kids again.

Yes, Dipper definitely thought that he could find himself getting used to dating.


	8. Chapter 7

_July 7_ _th_

“Okay, the most important thing is to remember to stay in character.” Mabel said as she examined her handiwork critically before going back in with a stick of greasepaint to add yet another defining shadow.

“I swear I’m going to get you back for this Mabel.” Dipper said in an oddly muffled tone from his seat on the chair in the attic, his neck achingly stiff from having been forced to remain motionless for so long.

“Now here’s your motivation: you’re a creature of the night- but you are also a creature of passion!” she said, adding the last part dramatically while deftly applying yet another thin patch of fake fur to her brothers face.

“No jury would convict me.” Dipper grumbled in a joking monotone, the plastic costume teeth in his mouth making speech an awkward act.

“Hey, you said it yourself that it was going to be my turn to plan out our next date – so here we are.” Mabel said as she stepped back to give her latest masterpiece a once over before nodding her head in satisfaction. She picked up a hand mirror from her small trestle table of equipment and passed it over to Dipper who took it wordlessly and raised it to his face.

“Wow… Mabel this is _really_ good. I can’t even recognize me!” Dipper said, impressed despite his annoyance at the long wait. The face that glared back at him from the mirror stared with the burning golden eyes of the costume contacts that Mabel had him put on before she had set to work and his own familiar features were obscured by layers of false fur, yellowed monster fangs and an oddly snout-ish latex nose. _Its not just the werewolf makeup though,_ Dipper thought as he turned his head this way and that to get a more complete look, _she actually made my_ face _look different too._ He saw how Mabel had managed to use her often underestimated artistic skills to seemingly sculpt his cheekbones, brow and jawline to appear different enough so that while he still looked like a man who was wearing werewolf makeup, he didn’t look like _Dipper_ wearing werewolf makeup.

“Well duh, thats the whole point of a disguise, silly.” Mabel said playfully as she packed up her costuming equipment and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Absolutely no one is going to be able to recognize you under all that jazz at the big Summerween bash tonight, so we’ll be free to get as romantic as we feel like out in public, even if people we know are there!” she said with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I got that part of the plan,” Dipper said as he stood up and shifted around uncomfortably, “but why am I in these leather pants also?”

“Well whats the point of having a new boytoy if you can’t show him off?” Mabel said saucily as she gave Dipper a slow approving look up and down, causing him to blush under the layers of costuming obscuring his face. _God he’s so cute when he gets all squirmy and bashful!_ She thought as she giggled internally at his expression.

“Where did you even get these things anyway?” Dipper asked in confusion as he ran his hands over the unfamiliar texture covering his legs.

“I found them while digging around in those boxes of old clothes- I guess they were Stan’s at some point.” Mabel said off-handedly.

Dipper shuddered in quiet horror to himself at the thought. _The things I do for love._

“Ok, now that you’re all finished up I need to get my costume on too. Grunkle Stan won’t be back from the store for a while so it should give us enough time to head out together before he asks too many questions.”

“What were you going to be dressing up as again?” Dipper asked.

“You’ll see in a few minutes, till then just try and relax. Don’t move your face around too much until the latex glue sets though or else it might fall off later.” Mabel called back to him as she headed down to the bathroom to get changed with a bag from the Summerween store in her hand.

 _Easier said than done,_ Dipper thought grumpily at the feel of all the unfamiliar junk on his skin causing him to suddenly itch like crazy. Resisting the almost maddening urge to scratch with all his willpower, Dipper lay back gently in his bed and cracked open one of the many mystery novels that he had packed for the trip and thumbed over toward the dog-ear he had left in it the last time he’d read it. Admittedly that hadn’t been in quite a long while since he and Mabel had found more interesting pursuits to occupy their time ever since the night of The Date. The change in the twins sex life, namely the fact that they now _had_ a sex life, had seemed to shift their already fairly intense relationship up into a new level and Dipper had found himself going through his days in a sort of golden-pink haze as a result. _I don’t think I’ve ever honestly been more happy in all of my life,_ Dipper reflected to himself as he absentmindedly skimmed the page with only half-interest, _even if I am wearing what feels like 30 pounds of monster face and my great uncles old biker pants._ Dipper had also found himself growing bolder in the days since The Date had passed, finding more excuses to get close to Mabel during the daytime when he normally had tried to stay distant before to keep up appearances. He had meant what he said to her that night; he wasn’t ashamed of how he felt for her and he wanted to let her know it every way he could. Mabel, for her part, had taken notice of this shift in his attitude and had responded to it with a warmth of her own. Her own admission that night about the way the pressure of their secrecy had been effecting her was causing Dipper to start to reevaluate everything about their strange situation in a new light and he felt the plan that had been ticking over in his head grow ever more clear with each passing day. _I can’t lose her,_ he thought, _now more than ever I can’t lose her. I don’t care what it will take._

Dipper shook the serious thoughts from his head and tried to focus on the book in his hands instead. _Party tonight, no time for any scheming – Mabel planned this one out, so lets show her a good time! I wonder what she’ll be wearing? Knowing Mabel she’ll probably show up in that big goofy foam banana suit she was marveling at in the costume shop after making me go through all the effort of getting into this elaborate werewolf getup._ He winced inwardly remembering the way she’d he had held up the costume and asked if he thought it would make her look “a-peeling”. _That would be pretty typical of her… of course its not like I don’t find all that silliness of hers adorable as all hell, so I don’t think I’d mind. Not unless she wanted to get frisky in the banana suit that is… well… maybe I wouldn’t mind even then to be totally honest. How would you even do it in a banana suit though? Wait, why am I even wondering this? Hormones, what have you done to me!_

“Ok, ready to go!” Mabel called out from downstairs and Dipper hopped up to his feet and headed down the creaking steps to the living room where he saw Mabel standing waiting for him in a costume that actually made his jaw drop, something he had always thought of as just a poetic exaggeration till now. _So much for the banana suit theory,_ Dipper thought, stunned.

Mabel was leaning against the banister at the foot of the stairs in a figure hugging black dress of some satiny material that was cut low and deep, exposing quite an eyeful of cleavage. She had painted her face up to be pale but with coal black eyeliner and blood red lips that glistened wetly in the light and made her white plastic vampire fangs stand out against them like ivory. Dipper also spotted an enormous fake ruby that glittered on a silver choker around her slender neck, and he noted that her normally warm mahogany eyes were masked by a set of fiery red contact lenses. Typical of Mabel, she had also added a silly looking cat-eared headband as well as some crudely drawn whiskers and a black nose spot penciled onto her face.

“Double costume- a sexy vampire babe dressed up as a cute kitty-cat! What do you think?” she asked as she stood with a hand on her hip and a wide grin on her face.

“Thats… thats quite an outfit.” Dipper said slowly. _Try not to drool too much if you can help it Dipper. Remember your dignity… wow that dress is pretty tight there… dignity!_

“Glad you like,” Mabel said with a smile, “I just figured: Vampire plus Werewolf- thats pretty much the ultimate Summerween power-couple right there!”

“Heh, yeah – I can see the logic there.” Dipper said, darting his eyes up from Mabel’s inviting cleavage and back to her face with a sloppy grin.

Mabel frowned slightly as she looked over at Dipper. “Somethings not quite right here though…” she said quizzically before she walked toward him, the tight fabric of the dress exaggerating every fluid motion in her steps. She came up to him slowly and placed her hands on the lapels of his shirt, gripping them tightly – unconsciously Dipper felt himself start to draw his face toward hers to kiss her before she gave a sudden violent grunt and tore his shirt open, sending the buttons pinging off into the distant corners of the room.

“Mabel, what the hell?” Dipper asked in surprise as she stepped back and admired her handiwork.

“Well the book is called ’ _Wolfman: Bare Chest_ ’, I’m just trying to get it as accurate as possible.” she said teasingly.

“This was my only nice shirt. Seriously, I don’t own any other ones.” Dipper said with a slight frown.

“I’ll sew the buttons back on later, its not a biggie.” Mabel said playfully as she slowly traced a finger down from her boyfriends newly exposed collar bone to just above the waistline of his pants, smiling at the way her gentle touch had sent a slight shudder through his skin. “Besides, I like the view this way better.”

She gasped in surprise as she felt Dippers arms shoot out and pull her in close, one gripping loosely about her shoulders and the other low and tight around her waist. “Ditto.” he said before bending down to kiss her hard, their pointy prosthetic teeth clacking oddly against one another. Even with the clumsiness of the makeup getting in the way Mabel felt her heart flutter and her leg raise like the heroine in one of the cheesy romantic comedies she adored at the intensity of the kiss and had to throw her arms over Dippers neck to keep herself steady.

“Mmmm… save me some of those for later.” she murmured happily as they slowly broke their kiss and headed out to the car together, hand in hand.

“Ok, so if I remember your plan correctly – we park about a block away, then you go in first and I go in like, fifteen or twenty minutes later so it doesn’t look like we came together, right?” Dipper asked as he opened up the passenger side door to let Mabel into the car.

“Correct - Dipper is off on a camping trip by the lake to try and see if he can record footage of a lake monster and he let me borrow his car for the night.” Mabel said.

“That was very generous of him. You know, for someone who said she didn’t like lying you are actually really good at coming up with this stuff.” Dipper said.

“It gets a lot easier if I just think of it all as a big play – then it almost becomes sort of fun. Oh don’t forget the best part! You are playing a mysterious foreign exchange student visiting from Eastern Europe. Do the voice!” Mabel said with a grin.

“Mabel, I don’t want to do the voice.” Dipper said with a sigh as he rolled his eyes.

“C'mon! You actually aren’t too bad at it. Do the voice – pleeeeeease?” she asked with clasped hands and shining eyes, her painted lips drawn into a soft pout.

“Ugh. Fine, I vill do ze voice.” Dipper said in a thick and entirely unconvincing accent that sounded half Bela Lugosi and half war-movie German soldier.

“Perfection!” Mabel said with a cheerful squeal. “Okay Gerard, we are off!”

“ _Da_.” Dipper said stoically.

“Pretty sure that’s Russian, smart-guy.” Mabel teased.

“I don’t zink anyone at ze party vill know ze difference.” Dipper joked back as he turned the key and set the sputtering old engine roaring to life.

An oddly familiar tune echoed from the radio and Dipper and Mabel both paused as they recognized the sounds of ’ _Werewolves of London_ ’ tinkling out from the static-y speaker. Dipper reached down to change the station but felt Mabel’s hand shoot out to grasp his wrist in a death-grip.

“Don’t you dare.” she said with a laugh, “It’s perfect!”

Singing along off-key to the old song, the pair made their way into town in high spirits.

* * *

After he had finished waiting bored out on the curb for the pre-deterimined time Dipper made his way through the door and into the blasting noise of the party, which was currently being held in a new all-ages club that was trying to sell itself as a trendy hotspot for young people to hang out. Dipper personally gave the place a few more months before it folded up entirely since it didn’t really seem to match the character of anything else locally around town, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to enjoy himself tonight while it was still here. The lighting was alternating between too dim to see clearly and flashing to eye searing intensity, but he managed to adjust to it in a few minutes before he started scanning the room for Mabel. The crowd was a mixture of older teens and people who looked like they were about the right age for mid-college, with the occasional ‘adult-adult’ scattered here and there, usually looking out of place and uncomfortable amid the bustle. _Where could she be?_ Dipper thought as he craned his neck over the heads of a group of giggling high school age girls pointing out his costume to one another. _Stupid ’_ Wolfman: Bare Chest _’ craze,_ Dipper cursed internally, _Mabel doesn’t even really like those books that much anymore, she just dressed me up like this to mess with me. Though the way she was looking at me earlier when she tore open my shirt… Ok, I gotta draw the line somewhere hormones, and I think participating in possible werewolf sex-fantasies is a good place for that line. Maybe. I’m pretty sure she was just messing with me though, so this entire line of thought is moot. I really need to get a less stupid internal monologue,_ Dipper cursed to himself silently.

 _Aha! There she is,_ Dipper thought with a smile, _not sure why I didn’t check the dance floor first, that’s pretty much the only place she would want to be at a place like this._ Mabel was currently out near the center of the room dancing with Candy (in a very elaborate robot costume complete with flashing LEDs) and Grenda (who Dipper was surprised to see made an excellent Valkyrie), the three of them just moving together in a relaxed way to the heavy beat of the music blasting out from the speakers near the stage. Dipper could see a few stray single guys scattered among the dancing couples and saw that many of their eyes were drawn to Mabel, and though he knew that there was absolutely no basis for any jealousy he still felt a hot spark of anger flare in his chest at seeing the way they looked at her. _Keep your cool man,_ Dipper said to himself, _there’s no reason to get all aggro just because some guys are looking at a girl who you just happen to be going out with. Of course they are looking… she’s beautiful. She’s beautiful and I’m the incredibly lucky guy who is here with her… well, sort of here with her. That guy over there who looks like he wants to head over better back off though or he’s going to see what the wrong end of a shrink ray looks like. Gah, seriously dude calm down - don’t go full manotaur here! Mabel can take care of herself._ The aforementioned guy did indeed make his way over, but Mabel had deflected him with a shake of her head and he had then found himself gripped about the shoulders by Grenda who pulled him in for a dance instead. Mabel glanced off to the side and her expression lit up as she caught Dippers eye, giving him a quick wink and gesturing him forward with a crooking motion of her finger while her friends weren’t looking. Dipper felt an appropriately wolfish grin spread over his face as he started to make his way over to the group, but halfway there Dipper was gripped by a sudden and totally irrational nervousness, of the sort he’d always felt on the rare occasions that he had gone up to ask a strange girl to dance for the first time… which made no sense at all because this was _Mabel._ He’d known her literally his entire life… of course if the whole charade of the night was to be kept up he had to pretend to be a total stranger and that meant approaching her like one, and Dipper suddenly felt a beat of panic at the realization that he really wasn’t all that good at acting, that his fake accent was incredibly stupid & that he was certain that Mabel’s friends would see through their ruse in a heartbeat. _Crap. What am I even doing here? Am I seriously going to just walk right over and ask her to dance in a voice like Dracula’s even lamer cousin and expect her friends NOT to notice that its obviously me?_ Mabel cocked her head slightly at seeing the hesitation come into his step and silently mouthed ’ _Whats wrong_?’ at him, with a look of such genuine concern on her face that Dipper consciously started to push his insecurity aside. _This is Mabel here – if I can try to fight a monster for her sake then I can ask her to dance, even if I have to do it in a stupid voice. Really this is way easier if you think about it. Piece of cake._

As if sensing his earlier nervousness Mabel had started to come toward him as he was debating with himself and the pair ended up meeting halfway under the flickering strobe-lights, with the cheesy smoke from the fog machine swirling around their ankles. They stood there, arms length apart and Dipper ached to pull her in close but held himself back for the sake of the little drama that Mabel was staging tonight.

“Vould ze lady care to danse?” Dipper asked, laying the hammy accent on thick as a stack of bricks and Mabel giggled a little before nodding at him with a twinkle in her eye.

“I would love to, mysterious stranger.” she said, moving in closer and Dipper felt the familiar relaxing smell of her jasmine scented shampoo drift into his face as they started to move together with Mabel moving along to the beat and Dipper always just slightly off. _He’s not much of a dancer,_ Mabel thought to herself, _but this is Dipper, so he doesn’t need to be. Besides,_ she found herself thinking with a wicked grin flashing briefly across her lips, _I know he can move_ very _well in other ways. Especially that last time…_

Mabel had been conscious over the past few days of how fast things had been moving between the two of them, but in many ways it had made sense to her. They had been together all their lives, so there wasn’t going to be any awkward 'getting to know you’ period where they had to probe out one another’s personalities and interests and secrets… she knew Dipper almost better than he knew himself and he knew her just as well, to the point where she sometimes thought that they might end up doing that creepy twin thing where they could complete each others sentences. The way he looked at her, the feel of something as simple as his hand gripping hers, even his smell… she couldn’t help but feel her breath catch and her pulse pound in her veins when she thought of him and remembered that he was hers and vice versa. _This is what romance feels like,_ Mabel had thought with her heart racing as they danced, _the real stuff, not whatever it was that I had with those guys I had dated in school. None of them made me feel this alive… this happy… none of them had made me want them like this… made me need them like this._ There was just something about Dipper that had kicked Mabel’s once mostly dormant sex-drive into high gear and she had found herself initiating things half the time and was always thrilled when he made a move on her the other half (admittedly usually after she had spent a little time teasing and building him up till he snapped). She had found the reality of it all to be SO much better than anything she had imagined while reading her well-thumbed collection of romance novels (even the especially steamy ones she kept hidden in a shoe box under her bed back home). _You’ve got it bad girl,_ Mabel thought to herself as she felt her eyes moving over Dippers bare chest as they drew closer in the dance, _but he looks like he has it about the same judging by the way he’s been ogling me all night. Maybe we’ll leave the party early…_

“Hey, do you mind if I cut in?” a voice interjected from the side, snapping Mabel out of her drifting thoughts. She turned to see a tall blonde guy who looked about twenty giving her a wide easy smile.

“Yes. I do.” Dipper _growled_ at him, and Mabel felt the grip of his hands on her tighten briefly as he drew his lips back over his false monster teeth in a grimacing scowl.

It was a testament either to Dippers sudden intensity or Mabel’s costuming skills that the blonde’s eyes widened slightly and he held up his hands while stepping back slowly. “Easy there psycho. I’m gonna be on my way now.” he said slowly, shooting a confused glare back over his shoulder as he walked away.

“Um.. sorry.” Dipper said quietly to Mabel, embarrassment at his sudden outburst evident in his tone.

“Why Gerard, you’re so fierce!” Mabel said teasingly, running a reassuring hand up his arm and onto his shoulder.

Recovering his confidence, Dipper drew Mabel in closer to himself, “Well, I _am_ a creature of passion after all.” he joked with a nervous chuckle.

“Hey, you stopped doing the voice.” Mabel said with a false pout as they began to dance once again when a new song came up, an industrial track with a heavy thumping beat that sent Mabel’s hips and shoulders swaying to and fro.

“The voice was stupid.” Dipper said flatly.

“The voice _was_ stupid,” Mabel chuckled in agreement, “but it was sweet of you to do it for me anyway.”

“Hey, anything to put a smile on my Mabel’s face.” Dipper said with a smile of his own, and even through the animalistic contact lenses and the thick layers of latex and hair obscuring his face Mabel felt something shoot through her at seeing the raw adoration in his expression. _He loves me… like, really deep down to his core loves me. It’s almost too much, knowing that… and knowing how I feel the same and all of it just tangling together._

“Anything?” she said teasingly to try and deflect her sudden feeling of vulnerability with a little light flirting.

“Try me.” he shot back with a challenging smile. _He’s gotten better at flirting too,_ she smiled, _more confident._

“I intend to later.” Mabel purred in response, tracing her nails across his shoulders and over the back of his neck which she knew would set him off and she was rewarded with the shiver she saw pass through him. _Wow… we are getting a bit_ too _intense here,_ she thought, _maybe I better dial it back a little before we end up tearing each others clothes off in the middle of the dance floor. Mmmm… thats a mental image._ “Hey, want to go get some drinks after this dance? I’m feeling pretty parched.” she said in a more normal tone.

“Sure,” Dipper said, shaking his head as if to clear it, “sounds good to me.” _Get a grip on yourself man,_ he chided himself, _the night has barely started and you already want to throw her over your shoulder and drag her back up to the room… gotta pace yourself or she’ll think that you don’t have any self control. Try to spare at least a little blood for your brain tonight._

When the pair had made their way over to the snack bar they ran into Candy and Grenda (still gripping her captive dance partner in an affectionate headlock) and Dipper felt himself start to sweat. _Okay… here is where it all falls apart,_ he thought to himself.

“Hey Mabel, who’s your friend?” Grenda asked as she gave Mabel a wide grin.

“Well… this is..um,” Mabel began falteringly. _Oh man this is so much harder in real life than it was in my head,_ Mabel thought nervously.

“Gerard,” Dipper said quickly after he saw Mabel’s hesitation, once again slathering on the ludicrous accent, “from Translovakia. Mabel vas just showing me some of your American dances.” _They are never going to buy this._

Silence ticked on for a few uncomfortable seconds.

“Neat!” Grenda said loudly, and Dipper felt himself breathing a deep sigh of relief.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that country.” Candy said in a quietly confused tone, but Mabel recovered her composure and frantically patted her friend on the back.

“Well yeah, it was one of those ones that got renamed during that whole …Soviet Union-y… thing… thats why its not on any map, right Gerard?” Mabel said with a too-high laugh.

“ _Da_.” Dipper said quickly.

“Oh.” Candy said. “Well, how are you liking America?” she asked.

 _Thank god this is the most gullible city in America,_ Dipper thought as relief flooded his system. _Now to just try and keep it up for the rest of the night._ He glanced over at Mabel and she gave him a quick smile that banished any of his earlier nervousness. _Maybe this will be a little fun after all._

* * *

It was near midnight now and the Pines twins made their way out of the club and into the deserted street, laughing loudly as they walked along together.

“I can’t believe you told them you were a musician!” Mabel chortled as she gave Dipper a playful shove.

“I thought it would be more impressive,” Dipper laughed, “besides, I am a musician.”

“Dipper, you played the tuba in band- that is like the least sexy instrument imaginable. It’s like being serenaded by a giant metal whoopee cushion.” Mabel teased.

“Touche,” Dipper replied. “What was that bit about me being a Count though? I thought Translovakia was a republic?” he joked.

“It doesn’t even exist, so it can be a monarchy if I want.” Mabel said matter-of-factly.

“So, how did we do?” Dipper asked.

“I think it went great! Thanks for stepping up when I started to choke back there…” Mabel said, giving his hand a small squeeze.

“Hey, no problem… and you were right, it was pretty great to just go out and have some fun tonight. Sorry for giving you a hard time about it back at the house earlier.” Dipper replied.

“Told you! Tonight was pretty fantastic… but the nights not over yet,” Mabel said playfully as she glanced up at Dipper with a sly look in her eyes.

They stopped under a streetlight and Dipper felt his heart start to pound hard in his chest. No matter how many times he had gotten to kiss Mabel it always seemed to set him soaring as high in his mind as that first time when he’d thrown all his caution and fear aside and done it. He cupped her chin in his hand and bent to her slowly but before their lips could meet a loud chorus of groans drifted through the air and the confused pair turned to find the source of the sound.

A shadowy mass of figures was shuffling their way up the street in the distance, the flat yellow light of the street lamps illuminating grey skin and dull staring eyes. They shambled forward, arms outstretched and their voices creaked and sighed out a low deep sound that seemed to echo with an unspeakable pain.

“Neat! I didn’t know this town was doing a Zombie Walk for Summerween.” Mabel said as she pulled her ever-present camera from her purse and snapped a picture of the slowly approaching crowd.

The cool night breeze blew in and Dipper caught the edge of a scent like leaf mould combined with a dumpster full of bad steak. “Um… I think those might actually be real zombies Mabel.”

“What, seriously?” Mabel said as she cocked her head and glanced back at the crowd. As if on cue an arm fell off one of the figures in the lead and the severed limb began to drag itself forward by its fingers, twitching and jerking spastically.

“Pretty certain.” Dipper said with a nod.

“But this was supposed to be date night!” she said with annoyance in her voice.

“Tell that to the horde of the undead over there.” Dipper said, his mind racing as panic started to catch up with him.

“What do we do?” Mabel asked, her own voice taking on an edge as the reality of the bizarre situation dawned on her as well.

“Ok… um… well, currently they are all crowded around where we parked the car… so driving away is probably out of the question. But we can’t just let them tear up the town… Alright, follow me!” Dipper said, grabbing Mabel’s hand and dragging her down the street, frantically glancing at the windows and signs of all the closed down shops until he spotted the right one and jerked to a halt, patting his pockets frantically until he pulled out an ornate black key, slipped it easily into the lock and threw open the door. _Thank you President Trembley!_

Dipper flipped the light switch and the twins stood blinking in the middle of the small hardware store, with the flickering fluorescent brightness reflecting off the various tools hanging on the racks that lined the walls.

“Okay, so here’s the plan- we get armed, fight our way to the car & then follow the trail to where these things are coming from. Its been a while since I read that section on zombies in my old journal but I’m pretty sure someone has to have made them. Dead people don’t walk around too much on their own usually.” Dipper said as he hefted a shovel experimentally.

“Why are we always the ones who have to deal with this junk?” Mabel groused as she looked over the shelves with a critical eye.

“That’s just part of the fun of being one of the Mystery Twins.” Dipper said with grim humor as he grabbed a machete from a nearby rack and stuffed it into his belt with a nod.

“Oh man, I’m so taking this!” Mabel said excitedly as she hefted a chainsaw with a grunt, the smile on her face combining with her Summerween makeup to give her a ghoulish appearance.

“C'mon, its super heavy, really loud and we don’t have any fuel for it. Here, try this one instead.” Dipper said as he handed her a sharp flat spade which she took with a sour expression.

“I’m just trying to make the best of this,” Mabel said as she leaned the tool over her shoulder, “I mean, tonight was supposed to be special.”

“An attack by the living dead isn’t special?” Dipper joked nervously as he grabbed a wood chopping axe from the wall and took a practice swing with it.

“I meant special in the good way you butt.” Mabel replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

 _You really can’t keep her down for long can you?_ Dipper marveled to himself at the speed at which his sister had adjusted to the current situation. _I’m almost ready to scream here, but she’s still just being Mabel. God she’s amazing!_

“I promise I’ll make it up to you next time, for now lets just focus on staying alive long enough to reach the car. I’ll go first, no arguments this time-” he said before Mabel could interrupt, “-we don’t want to crowd each other while swinging sharp things in the dark, that sounds like a recipe for an emergency room trip if I ever heard it. I’ll try and distract them away from the car, then you get in and drive over to get me.”

“Fine, but don’t expect me to run away if you get in trouble.” Mabel said with determination as she caught the keys Dipper tossed her way.

“Agreed. You ready?” Dipper asked with a deep calming breath as he gripped the heavy axe in his hands tightly to keep himself from trembling. He looked over at Mabel and saw her licking her lips nervously, the tip of her tongue stained red from the violent shade of her lipstick and her fingers drumming frantically on the handle of the spade he had handed her earlier. _She’s just as scared as me, she’s just better at hiding it. Gotta keep her safe. No matter what I gotta keep her safe. No more close calls!_

Mabel nodded once, silently and Dipper felt his own trembling stop as they threw open the door and stalked carefully down the street toward the car, drawing closer to the shambling crowd. _Maybe they’ll ignore us?_ Dipper thought hopefully until he saw one of the closest ones turn its hideous face toward him and lurch forward violently with its arms thrown wide and a dull roar shrieking out from its dry throat, _Spoke too soon!_

“Stay back Mabel!” Dipper yelled as he stepped forward and swung the heavy axe into the head of the bony attacker, driving it to the floor with the force of his swing. The noise had drawn the attention of several of the others and they started to shuffle toward him with their hands twitching, their gnarled fingers clutched into claws and a dull glow in their filmy eyes. _They make this look a lot easier in the movies,_ Dipper thought as he pulled the blade free with a grunt of effort and brought it up again for a second swing, taking another zombie off at the knees and sending it toppling back into the ones behind it to send them bowling over in a heap. _Wow, these guys are really uncoordinated._ With a yelp Dipper kicked the head off one of the creatures as it crawled closer to him clutching at his ankle and he tried to draw the rest toward him with shouts and noise. _I can’t see Mabel… but she hasn’t called for help so I have to assume she’s safe. God she better be safe. There are a lot more of these guys than I had imagined…_ he thought as he saw the shambling mass start to surround him and he stepped back frantically taking wide sweeping swings with the axe, his breath growing heavy with the effort. _I think this time might really be it… I might not make it out of this one alive._ The fear was gripping his heart now with iron claws but Dipper felt his jaws clamp down in a defiant scowl as he threw the heavy axe aside and pulled the much lighter machete out from its sheath. _This is stupid! Who even gets killed by zombies anyway? I was just supposed to be having a nice night out with Mabel tonight! I hope she makes it out of this okay… she should be fine if she can make it back to the shack… Stan does have all those guns around in case someone tries to bring a ladder into the house after all._

The blast of a car horn shook Dipper from his despairing thoughts as he saw the hood of his old blue sedan suddenly plow through the crowd of ghouls that had been reaching toward him and the passenger side door was thrown open wide and inviting.

“Get in you idiot!” Mabel shouted at him, waving her arm frantically. Dipper dived in and slammed the door shut as the tires squealed against the road crushing the groaning bodies all around them.

“Seatbelt!” Mabel snapped at him as he shook himself blearily, and he clicked the buckle into place while the car roared its way down the road, thumping as it tossed the bodies of the walking dead left and right.

“I think I’m going to have to get this thing washed tomorrow.” Dipper said as he saw a severed arm flop onto the windshield and slide oozingly off to the side.

“That would probably be a good idea.” Mabel agreed as she cut the wheel sharply to plow the car through a knot of zombies that had shuffled into view from a nearby alleyway, sending them flying every which way across the road behind them in pieces.

“Do you ever worry that we’ve become too jaded?” Dipper asked as he heard the wheels thump over yet another groaning body.

“Nah… I mean, yeah we’ve seen some messed up stuff,” Mabel said, “but its not like this is anything too big, right? I mean its just zombies.”

“Yeah, I guess they are sort of over-exposed,” Dipper replied, “it almost feels sort of clichéd to be honest.” _What am I even saying?_ He thought.

“I know, right?” Mabel said. _This has to be the weirdest conversation we’ve had yet,_ she thought to herself.

“I think I can see where they are coming from!” Dipper said, pointing forward. “Head over toward the old graveyard!”

“Aye aye!” Mabel said cheerily, the surreal nature of their situation sending her thoughts into giggling fits. “Now do you see the benefit of utility belts?” she asked.

“Is this really the time for the utility belt conversation?” Dipper asked.

“Well I’m sorry, it never stops being relevant whenever this junk happens!” Mabel said.

“Ok, if we survive I’ll wear the utility belt!” Dipper replied.

“I’m holding you to that.” Mabel said triumphantly and the two found themselves breaking into wild frantic laughter as the car veered through the flung open gates of the old cemetery.

* * *

A wide circle was drawn into the earth in the heart of the graveyard in piles of thick white powder, and the flickering light of the fire in the center illuminated a pair of robed figures standing huddled together. One clutched a book tightly in a shaking hand, and their hooded heads darted and swiveled this way and that at the darkness around them.

“Jeremy I think this was a really stupid idea.” the taller figure said.

“Yeah, I can see that now.” said the shorter figure in an annoyed tone as he scanned through the book frantically.

“Seriously, did you know this would actually work? I thought you had just been messing with me about this junk.” the taller figure quailed.

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would. Now I really wish I’d been wrong.” Jeremy said.

“Does it say how to… un-zombie them?” the taller one asked, shaking his companion by the shoulders with panic gripping his voice.

“That’s a very good question,” a voice called out from the darkness. The two turned and saw a gruesome animalistic figure stalking toward them in the firelight with a bloody machete clutched in its hand.

“Crap! You didn’t say anything about a werewolf too dude!” the taller one yelled.

“Its a costume you jackass!” a female voice called out in an irritated voice and they saw a girl following behind him with a weird looking shovel in her hand and an expression of extreme annoyance on her otherwise cute face.

“We’re so sorry! We just thought it would help us meet chicks!” the one called Jeremy said as he backed away slowly from the strangers holding their obviously recently used weapons.

“What, like dead chicks?” Dipper asked, confusion mingling with disgust in his voice.

“No! I mean… like, we figured it would make us cool… you know, if we could do magic.” the taller one said defensively.

“Hey, here’s a tip for the future,” Mabel said, her voice thick with sarcasm, “girls don’t like zombies you dingbat!”

“I don’t know, what about your first boyfriend?” Dipper said as he turned to Mabel with a playful note in his voice.

“Don’t you start! I’m still too pissed at these guys.” Mabel snapped.

“Ok, well… there is a way to undo the spell, but…” Jeremy began.

“But what?” Dipper growled, taking a threatening step toward him.

“Um… the thing about zombies is that they don’t want to be dead… so if we try to.. un-zombie them, they _might_ try to swarm over and kill us to prevent it.” Jeremy said hesitantly.

“Dude, why didn’t you read this thing all the way through before we started?” his friend asked in a stunned tone.

“Seriously.” Mabel added.

“Ok, everyone shut up.” Dipper snapped. “How long should it take to do the un-zombie thing?”

“Judging by the book here… like, fifteen minutes.” Jeremy said.

“During which time every zombie in town will come streaming back to the graveyard to try and eat your face, right?” Mabel said.

“Um… yes.” Jeremy said, blanching at the thought.

“Well, I can’t see a downside – get cracking nerd.” Mabel said grimly as she choked up her grip on the spade.

“No way! I’m not dying tonight. You guys can deal with this junk on your own.” the taller boy said as he tried to back off.

“No one is dying tonight!” Dipper said loudly, “Now, I’ll hold back the zombies so you guys have time to do the spell or whatever– Mabel you stay here.”

“What! No way!” Mabel shouted in frustration.

“Yes! You need to stay here and make sure these idiots finish the ritual or else the whole town might get overrun.” Dipper said before turning to glare at the two robed boys shaking by the firelight, “If they try and run before they finish, break their legs.”

Mabel looked at Dipper and saw him in the firelight, his breathing deep and steady and his face still covered in that ridiculous werewolf mask. _Why does he always have to do this… try and throw himself in danger to keep me safe. Doesn’t he know I want_ him _safe more than anything?_ She walked over to Dipper and pulled his face down to hers for a crushing kiss that set the blood pounding in her ears.

“You better come back alright buttface.” she said quietly as they broke the kiss.

“Count on it,” Dipper replied with an easy grin that he didn’t feel at all inside. He hefted the heavy blade in his hands and took a deep breath before stepping outside the circle, scanning around for anything that could try and approach.

Mabel walked over slowly to Jeremy and his friend and said to them, in a quiet voice, “Just so you guys know, if he gets hurt I’m going to personally make sure that there won’t be enough left of you to turn into a zombie. Got that?

"Yes ma'am.” Jeremy shuddered.

“Whatever you say!” his friend agreed with frantic nods of his head.

“Good, we understand each other. Now get to work!” she said menacingly.

The two boys flipped through the book until they came upon the appropriate passage and began to chant in faltering voices, hesitantly droning out the clumsy and unfamiliar words. Mabel shuddered as she felt a chill wind start to rise in the air, and she heard a dull wail seem to echo out from all around them. She strained her eyes in the darkness beyond the fire and saw some figures begin to appear here and there in the distance, their slow shuffling steps bringing them closer to the circle. Mabel glanced over at Dipper and saw his back straighten as he spotted the approaching dead and he gave a few practice swings of the machete before he stalked out into the darkness to meet them

“Whatever it is you are doing you better hurry up!” Mabel shouted as she turned back to the two would-be necromancers.

The two nodded frantically as they continued their chanting, their voices rising as if they were being overtaken from something _outside_ and the clouds overhead began to darken and roil madly, arcing with flashes of weird emerald light that cast crazy shadows across the graveyard. Mabel saw a huddling crowd in the distance and heard her brothers familiar voice raised up in furious shouting, hidden from view by the crush of bodies surrounding him. _I gotta go help him!_

Lightning crashed down suddenly, thick and blinding from the clouds overhead splitting the air with a sound that shook Mabel’s teeth in her head. The fire behind her began to flare high and hot, its flames burning a sickly green shade. Without warning a searing beam of flame thin as a pencil shot out from the heart of the fire and tore through the crowd of zombies in the distance engulfing the area in a blast of light and heat and sound that sent Mabel tumbling onto the ground. She rose to her feet unsteadily, the fire now returned to its normal orange and gold shades and the graveyard around her was entirely devoid of sound save for the crackling of the smoking logs and the wind soughing through the trees. _Dipper!_

Her heart caught up in her throat, Mabel ran unsteadily through the darkened grounds, drawing closer to the mass of bodies in the distance. _Pleasebeokaypleasebeokaypleasebeokay!_

An arm shot up from the center of the pile of un-zombied bodies and Dipper clawed his way up unsteadily, glancing around in surprise before he was thrown off his feet again as Mabel threw herself at him, wrapping her arms suffocatingly tight around his chest and crushing her lips to his so hard that it hurt.

“Wait..” Dipper said blearily, “let me shower first… I think I still have some zombie on me.”

“Don’t ever do anything like that again!” Mabel said, tears streaming from her eyes as she buried her face in her brothers chest.

“Promise.” Dipper said quietly, “From now on I’ll confine my zombie hunting to video games.”

“Good.” she said as she drew back and looked up into his eyes, his face dirty and the werewolf makeup torn and dangling in pieces off his skin. _I almost lost him. Forever._

“Now, lets finish business here.” Dipper said as he walked back toward the circle and to the two panting teens lying huddled in the grass. He nudged them with his foot and they looked up at him, fear evident in their eyes. “Hand it over,” Dipper said in a leaden voice with his hand outstretched expectantly toward them.

Wordlessly the book was passed his way and Dipper shuddered at the feel of the unusual texture of the leather on the cover. _Where did they even get this thing? What other secrets are in it?_ He turned and glanced at Mabel and saw her expression grow apprehensive as he had examined the book with obvious curiosity. _Probably better not to know them anyway,_ he thought before tossing the book into the fire with only a slight pang of regret.

“Aw man, I borrowed that from the library!” Jeremy groaned at seeing the book burn.

“Library fines are going to be the least of your worries if you ever try anything like this again,” Mabel said grimly as she drew her foot back and gave him a short hard kick to the ribs, causing him to double up and gasp in pain.

“We’re done with this stuff! Promise!” the second boy said, his hands raised frantically.

“Good.” Dipper said, his voice heavy with the exhaustion of the night, “Then get the hell out of here. Make sure to put out the fire before you go.” he added as an afterthought, taking Mabel’s hand in his own and leading her back to the car.

“What, we can go just like that?” Jeremy called out in surprise.

“Yeah. Its not like the cops would believe us if we told them about a zombie attack,” Dipper said, “actually I’m not sure that its even against the law to raise the dead to be honest.”

“We should write to our congressmen about that.” Mabel joked, the relief that had flooded her on seeing her brother alive making her lightheaded.

“I thought you were our congressmen?” Dipper joked back.

“That was six years ago, so I think my term has already ended.” Mabel replied.

“Good point.” Dipper said. “So how was tonights date, all in all?”

“Not as good as the first,” Mabel conceded, “but I’m sure the next one will be better.”

“Yeah, maybe we could go on a picnic or something?” Dipper said.

“Oh, that would be nice!” Mabel replied cheerfully.

The twins drove off into the night, leaving the stunned pair of teenage sorcerers alone in the graveyard.

“Do you have any idea who they were?” Jeremy asked.

“Not a clue. Seriously though man, this has gotta have been your worst idea to meet girls yet.” his friend replied.


	9. Chapter 8

_July 16 th_

Dipper awoke this morning, as he had every morning for almost a month now, with the feel of Mabel warm and soft in his arms and the smell of her hair almost blotting out his other senses but unlike every other time this small miracle had occurred it had given him no peace today. His eyes had opened at the touch of the early dawn light streaming in through the window and the first thing he had seen wasn’t Mabel’s sleeping face, but instead the calendar hanging on the wall beside her all-but-abandoned bed. As he looked at it with bleary eyes he thought that the adorable kitten wearing an Uncle Sam hat adorning the calender seemed to be staring at him accusingly for some reason. Confused by the odd mental image Dipper squinted to take a closer look and then felt a sudden coldness overtake him from within. The calender was a familiar sight, so common that he had almost forgotten it was there but today when he looked at it he realized with an unpleasant start that the ‘X’s marking down the days of July had almost eaten through the entire month.

 _Summer’s going to be over in just a few more weeks,_ Dipper thought and felt a sudden rush of panic hit him like a bucket of icy water to the face. _We’re going to have to go back home soon and from there we’ll have to… No! We already decided that we were going to stick together. Even before we were_ together- _together like we are now we had decided that. How though? I mean… what are we going to do? What am_ I _going to do?_ In the light of the morning all the plans and schemes that Dipper had been cycling through his head over the last few weeks seemed to be either hopelessly naive or just plain insane. _I thought I still had a lot more time… more time to make them workable, or at least less stupid. Crap, I’ve been so happy just_ being _with her that I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to be able to_ stay _with her after we leave here. Idiot!_

 _I can’t lose her,_ Dipper thought with his heart feeling like lump of lead in his chest as he buried his face into Mabel’s neck to inhale her scent, to try and forget everything for a peaceful second if he could. Try as me might though, he could not.

“Gruuugh… five more minutes.” Mabel groaned out sleepily as she buried her own face into his pillow, and Dipper pulled himself back to let her rest, turning away to lie flat on his back and stare vacantly up at the cobweb festooned beams of the ceiling.

_What am I going to do?_

* * *

“Someone’s got a serious case of the grumps this morning.” Mabel said playfully as she gave Dipper a friendly poke while they sat together at the breakfast table an hour later. Ever since he’d woken up Dipper had been practically silent but with his mind racing frantically through any available option that had occurred to him, discarding them one by one before desperately seeking another. By the time Mabel had slowly woken beside him and given him her now-traditional good morning kiss on the cheek he had worked himself almost into a panic, but he tried his best to keep it under the surface to avoid worrying her. _Of course, this is Mabel here,_ Dipper thought, _she can pretty much see right through me most of the time even when I’m_ not _so obviously stressed out._

“I guess I just slept on the wrong side of the bed or something,” Dipper replied with a small false smile. _If I’d slept facing the other side like I normally do then I wouldn’t have seen that damn calendar… of course it isn’t like not seeing it would make it any less real._

“Well I know just the cure for it!” Mabel said sprightly, “Today’s our day off – lets go on that picnic like we talked about. The weather is beautiful out there, and I’ve been feeling kinda cooped up in the Shack lately.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty fun actually.” Dipper said perking slightly, and he was surprised to find that he meant it. _A little sun and fresh air_ would _be good for the brain, and it would also be nice for us to spend a little more time alone together when its not after midnight it the attic. Maybe this is exactly what I need… just as long as we don’t have to go on another death march courtesy of Sergeant Mabel that is._

“There’s this beautiful hiking trail out by the river that I’d been wanting to check out,” Mabel said cheerfully as she poured out a bowl of cereal for herself before opening the fridge and checking the milk cautiously to see if it had been purchased sometime in the last year. “Apparently its pretty much been abandoned because everyones too lazy to finish such a long one! Also it’s _possibly_ cursed, but I’m pretty sure that last part is an exaggeration.”

 _So much for that hope,_ Dipper thought with a mental sigh, but he smiled at seeing the excited look on his sisters face as she started telling him the strange rumors she had heard about the trail. _At least now I don’t have to beat myself up if I find myself staring at her in those tiny shorts. Of course knowing how flirty Mabel’s been acting lately she’ll probably_ try _to walk in front of me this time just to make sure I get a good look and then call me a perv when she catches me. I don’t know why she likes trying to make me blush so much… or why I even still blush at all considering that we’ve already-_

“Earth to Dipper-” Mabel said as she tapped him gently on the tip of his nose with her cold spoon, leaving a drip of milk behind on his skin, “-are you alright in there? You just kinda zoned out for a bit.”

“Heh, yeah – sorry. I guess I must not be totally awake yet.” Dipper replied, wiping the stray droplet of milk off his nose with the sleeve of his worn old brown canvas jacket with a slight frown.

“Yeah, I can see that. Or-” Mabel said, her voice dropping into a playfully accusing whisper, “-you spaced out thinking about me wearing my hiking shorts.”

Dipper stared at her blankly for a second before responding in a flat monotone, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Haha! I am _so_ right! Yes! Score one for team creepy-twin-thought-sharing!” Mabel said triumphantly, giving the air a small victory punch.

“Okay, how did you even do that? Are you hiding some kind of amulet on you or something?” Dipper asked, dropping all pretense of innocence. _Do we even_ have _something that can read minds? I don’t think we do… I really should make a catalog of all that magic junk later when I have the time._ If _I have the time._

“Nah, it was just a really lucky guess. My other option would have been to say you were thinking about bigfoot or something.” Mabel said dismissively as she dug into her cereal with gusto.

“Well, I _do_ think about bigfoot a lot so that might have worked too.” Dipper said jokingly, feeling his spirits lift up as the familiar rhythm of their usual banter wormed its way into his mind to push out his earlier cloud of negativity.

“You better watch yourself though bro – it could be that I am mutating, and that my Alpha Twin powers are transforming me into every guys worst nightmare: _a girlfriend who can read your mind_!” she said, putting on her best 'spooky movie announcer’ voice for the last part.

“Maybe not so loud with the girlfriend thing?” Dipper hissed quietly at her, “At least till we are out of the house anyway.”

“Give me some credit Dip – Grunkle Stan is still fast asleep. If you weren’t so busy getting all pervy in your brain with images of my fantastic legs you would have noticed all the snoring.” Mabel said teasingly.

Dipper paused and he could hear the faint echo of Stans infamous window-pane rattling snore worming its way down the stairwell. “Fair enough. Sorry for getting all paranoid like that.”

“No biggie, it’s understandable- now c'mon, get yourself something to eat so we can start getting ready for the hike already! I want us to still have some daylight to work with here.” Mabel said excitedly, giving him a small shove toward the cabinets where the food was kept.

“Its 9 a.m., I think we won’t have to worry about nightfall for a while,” Dipper responded dryly but he did go get himself a bowl of his own and join her again at the table.

_Just a nice relaxing afternoon, that’s what I need to set my mind straight._

* * *

Time had passed, but Dipper could not say how much. Something between a few hours and a geologic age judging by the stiffness in his muscles and the nagging feeling that some joker had replaced the contents of his backpack with lead bricks.

“Mabel, I think this trail really is cursed.” Dipper groaned quietly as he trudged along after his sister.

“Oh shush, ya big wimp. How can someone who fought a bunch of zombies last week be such a baby about a little walking?” Mabel asked cheerfully as she loped ahead of him with easy swinging steps of her long legs.

“This isn’t a little walking Mabel, this is the dress rehearsal for some sort of weird migration ritual. I think I can see Canada off in the distance already.” Dipper panted as he hitched his drooping pack up higher onto his shoulders and paused to remove his cap and wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Well when we get there you can take a breather and have all the refreshing maple syrup you can drink.” Mabel called back playfully over her shoulder.

After grumbling quietly to himself about what she could do with the refreshing syrup, Dipper took a deep breath and tried to shake off his weariness and just enjoy the experience, to try and see the hike the way he thought Mabel must see it. He stopped and just _looked_ out around him, trying to see the world as it was instead of just taking it all for granted. The early afternoon sun was coming down strong from above but the arching boughs of the trees lining the path split the harsh rays into dappled beams of light, and the breeze rustling through the branches was coming down cool and sweet from the mountains. He could hear the calling of unfamiliar birds all around him, their whistles and chirps calming his earlier discontent and he felt peace wash over him slowly. _It really is beautiful out here…so different from anything we have back home… maybe getting to see something like this is worth a few blisters._

“Okay, I have to admit it is pretty nice out today.” Dipper conceded. “Even if we have pretty much just walked across more ground than all of Rhode Island.”

“I told you so- you spend too much time indoors Dip, a little fresh air now and then is good for you!” Mabel said, and he noticed that she had gradually slowed her steps until they were now walking side by side. Almost without thinking he reached out a hand and she slipped her own into his without a word, their fingers twining together in a firm but gentle grip.

“Hey, I get out too sometimes.” Dipper responded, slightly defensive but adding a small squeeze of his hand to hers as well.

“Tromping around through the woods while monster hunting doesn’t count. You don’t get to really appreciate all the nature around you when you’re running for your life from something that wants to eat your face.” Mabel said.

“I guess…” Dipper said, “but you do have to admit that it’s great exercise.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Mabel replied, “but I don’t think that you could really sell most people on it instead of just going to the gym.”

“I suppose I’m not most people then. I’d rather be running from something trying to eat my face than join a gym.” Dipper joked.

“Well, I guess it _has_ been working for you well enough,” Mabel teased back as she ran her other hand up his arm and gave his bicep a playful squeeze while making an approving noise in her throat.

“Nothing like a little terrified climbing and desperate undead smashing to get some definition.” Dipper replied in a semi-sarcastic tone. _That and the push ups that I do sometimes when you aren’t looking,_ he thought with slight embarrassment. Though he would never admit it to Mabel, even under threat of torture, he’d been secretly doing a little working out just to try and make himself more attractive to her ever since their relationship had started getting physical a few weeks ago. _Probably a lucky thing that I had, a little extra muscle does actually come in handy when you have to deal with weird junk trying to kill you every now and then. I guess my insecurity can be a good thing sometimes._

“Hey, speaking of our last date, do you remember that guy that Grenda had been dancing with?” Mabel said, taking Dipper’s mind out of that particular tangent as he tried to recall the boys face.

“Yeah.. I think his name was Rick or something? It was kind of hard to hear him while Grenda was practically choking him all night though.” Dipper responded as he thought back to their Summerween night at the dance club.

“Well apparently he gave her a call a few days afterward for a second date and they are pretty much going out now!” Mabel said cheerfully. “She’s pretty excited about it since she hasn’t had too much luck with boyfriends in the past.”

“Well, there’s someone out there for everyone,” Dipper said with a smile.

“I think the costume may have helped her confidence a lot,” Mabel said, “That girl can really rock a metal corset and viking helmet.”

“It was actually pretty good look for her.” he responded with a nod.

“Oh, and Candy’s been asking lately about whatever had happened to the mysterious Gerard.” Mabel said with a chuckle.

“Really? What did you end up telling her?” Dipper said cautiously, recalling the entire bizarre incident of their deception. _I STILL can’t believe that we pulled that off somehow._

“Unfortunately our love was not meant to be,” she began dramatically, “because he was a spy trying to steal state secrets and ended up getting deported when I was forced to turn him in.”

“Hey, I thought Translovakia was one of our allies?” Dipper joked back.

“Then maybe he was a free agent or something? Either way he’s probably buried in an unmarked grave somewhere by now.” Mabel said in a mock-sombre tone.

“Yeesh, that got pretty dark.” Dipper replied.

“Yeah, I probably should have dialed it back a bit on the last part.” Mabel conceded. “Still, its a good story, right?”

“A bit too dramatic for my tastes, but I guess it would still be more believable to most people than 'he spent the night fighting a bunch of zombies summoned by the _lamest_ cultists in existence.”

“I swear if I see either of those two guys again I’m going to give them a kick square in the nuts for making us put up with all that junk.” Mabel said with a small frown briefly flashing across her face.

“I think they probably learned their lesson. Anyway they already looked more scared of you than the zombies as it was.” Dipper joked.

“They should be.” Mabel said grimly.

“I’ve been thinking about a few new ideas for attractions back at the Shack lately,” Dipper said quickly to try and distract his sister from her sudden shift in mood. _That whole zombie thing must have really put her on edge I guess. Maybe she’s been needing this for relaxation just as much as I have?_

“Really? Like what?” Mabel asked, shaking off the dark look that had settled on her face.

“Well, how about slapping some pigeon wings on that weird stuffed turtle thats up in the attic?” Dipper said.

“What, like we make one of those little koopa guys from the Mario games?” Mabel asked.

“Exactly! The old people eat it up as an oddity and the kids get to laugh because they are in on the joke.” Dipper responded with a smile.

“I can see some potential there. How much glitter will it need?” Mabel asked critically as she stroked her chin thoughtfully.

“How much do you have?” Dipper said.

“I like the way you think – we’ll start on it tonight after we get back.” Mabel said cheerfully, and her wide smile made Dippers heart skip a beat. _I can’t get over how great she looks when she smiles like that at me._

“How long have we been walking for anyway?” Dipper asked, suddenly becoming aware once more of the twinges shooting up from his calf muscles with each step he took along the crunching leaves underfoot.

“Well, I’m not really sure…but I think I can see the halfway point marker up ahead though! Not a lot further to go.” Mabel said with a smile as she gave his hand a playful squeeze.

 _Halfway marker?_ Dipper thought as his heart sank deep into the pit of his chest, _Oh boy…._

* * *

Mabel gave an approving nod as she stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the clearing by the river bend that was just a short walk off from the path of the main trail. _The perfect spot for a picnic,_ she thought, _plus I think if we go any further Dipper will probably just fall down and demand that I bury him on the spot. Knowing him, he probably packed a shovel somewhere in that giant bag of his just in case._

“Hey Dipper, come on over this way – I think I found the spot!” she called out and she heard her brothers weary cry of celebration echo faintly through the trees as he slowly made his way toward her. She gave him a sympathetic look as he stumbled into the clearing and doubled over with his hands on his knees, panting raggedly. _Maybe I’ve been pushing him a little hard on the walk today… but its not my fault he always insists on carrying the really heavy pack. I mean, we’re just going on a picnic, not climbing Mount-freaking-Everest._

While Dipper was busy recovering his breath Mabel went over and helped him slip the bag off his back before she started laying out the thick old flannel blanket they had packed to use for the picnic. He joined her in setting up the food after a few minutes of rest and soon they were lying together under the shade of the trees and enjoying the chicken sandwiches and large bottles of cold tea that had been set aside for their meal. The twins ate mostly silently, just enjoying the gentle sound of the river rushing against the banks and Mabel scooted herself along the blanket until she was nestled up under one of Dippers arms, which he wrapped around her automatically as she leaned against him with a sigh. After they had polished off the last of the sandwiches Dipper had turned and produced a bag of gummy koalas from a secret pouch in his backpack, to Mabel’s delight, and declared that dessert was on him. They made a game of tossing the colorful candies into the air and trying to catch them in their mouths, but stopped after an attempt at the risky simultaneous-double-toss resulted in the twins banging their heads against one another and left them giggling like children at the ridiculousness of it all.

 _This is also what romance feels like,_ Mabel reflected with a smile when she caught sight of Dippers grinning face as he rubbed the sore spot on his forehead where her skull had collided with his, _its not just the big dramatic stuff that they write about or show in the movies. Its the little things. The silly things that you never really think about. The stuff that just makes you happy to just_ be _with the person you love._

“So, walking aside – how do you think this dates been going?” Mabel asked as she leaned back on her arms and luxuriated in the feel of the sunlight filtering through the trees on the bare skin of her arms and legs.

“This date has been 90% walking,” Dipper said in a sarcastic but still cheerful tone, “but I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s nice to just spend some time together with you out in the sun. You know, when we aren’t being chased by a monster or working in the Shack or what have you.”

“Hey, don’t knock being chased by monsters too much Dip – if we hadn’t been cornered by that giant bat you might never have kissed me.” Mabel said with a teasing smile. _Though I might have kissed you eventually…but who knows? Either way I’m glad it happened. Maybe not the almost dying part, but the rest of it for sure…  
_

“That’s a good point.” Dipper said with a nod as he lazily tossed a lime flavored gummy koala into his mouth.

“You gotta look for the silver linings in everything bro, even when it comes to being chased around by pissed off monsters.” she said matter-of-factly.

“He probably wouldn’t have been so angry if you hadn’t woken him with the camera flash,” Dipper teased as he gave her a gentle poke in the ribs and she swatted him back playfully in return.

“Well you gotta admit it made for a good picture – I saw you pasting it up in that journal I gave you.” Mabel retorted.

“Very true. I’ve actually ended up adding quite a few pages to that thing since you gave it to me. I’d almost forgotten just how much I really loved the summers we spent up here… and you know… going on these sorts of weird adventures with you.” Dipper said.

“They have been fun. Scary sometimes,” Mabel said, “but definitely fun. Plus you know, getting an awesome boyfriend out of the deal is pretty nice too.” she teased as she jabbed him playfully, “This is the epic summer romance that I’ve been wanting since I was a kid.”

He smiled back at her, but she noticed there was something else behind his eyes. Something sad and worried, like she’d noticed brewing in him earlier that morning. _What’s been up with him today?_

“What’s wrong Dip?” Mabel asked as she reached out and ran her hand over his shoulder gently and looked into his mahogany eyes with her own practically identical ones as if trying to see into his head, to spot whatever it was that was hurting him.

“I guess its the 'summer romance’ thing… I mean… do you worry about the future? You know… after the summers done and we have to leave here.” he said, hesitantly.

She paused. _So that’s whats been eating him._ “I guess I do… but I mean, we’re going to figure it out, right?”

“What if we don’t though?” he said shortly, startling her. “I mean… I’ve been trying to come up with something… some idea or plan for what we’re going to do when we have to go, but I’ve got NOTHING… and it just scares the hell out of me because I see the days just slipping by and I worry that… that you’ll be slipping away with them.”

“C'mon Dipping-sauce… don’t get so dramatic here. I’m not going to just disappear in a puff of smoke when the summers done. I love you- get that through your head,” she said as she reached out and tapped his forehead playfully with her knuckle. “If anything you’ll have a harder time finding a way to avoid me now that you’re my boyfriend.” she teased.

She saw him look at her then with a small sincere smile that set her heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird, and she leaned across to him to plant a slow kiss on his lips that left the both of them with wide smiles. _I mean, we will figure something out right? We have to… don’t we?_

“Okay, brainstorming time!” Mabel said with a loud clap of her hands, “Lets see what we’ve got to make sure that Dipbel can survive the end of summer.”

“Dipbel?” Dipper asked.

“I was trying to come up with a couple name… that was really the best I could do with Dipper and Mabel.” she replied.

“Yeah… you might want to work on that one a little more.” he said slowly.

“Idea one,” Mabel said sharply, ignoring his comment, “We run away and join the circus.”

“That might actually be a little harder than you think,” Dipper said, “plus I think we’d need some sort of talent or act or whatever.”

“How about a dancing pig? Oooh, or ventriloquism! I could go find Bear-O and-”

“Dear god no!” Dipper said in a voice of quiet horror that was only very slightly exaggerated.

“Seriously?” Mabel said with a roll of her eyes, “Still that creeped out by Bear-O?”

“Mabel I was waist deep in angry re-animated corpses last weekend and Bear-O is still pretty much the only thing that I have nightmares about.” he said in a deadpan voice.

“We should really take you to see someone about that.” Mabel said with a shake of her head.

“Well the circus is out anyway,” Dipper said, “but I do have one that might work… how do you feel about destabilizing the economy slightly?”

“Are we going to be doing more counterfeiting? Because I’ve been practicing and I think I’ve gotten a lot better lately.” Mabel said with a hint of pride.

“What? No… wait, what do you mean you’ve been practicing?” Dipper asked with confusion.

“Yup, how do you think I could afford such nice things? Oh, don’t look at me like that - its not like its even that big of a deal.” Mabel said as she toyed with the large goofy sparkling earrings dangling from her ears.

“Sure, what’s a little federal offense here and there?” Dipper replied sarcastically.

“Anyway, what was your big plan Mr. Judge-y?”

“Well I had been thinking a lot about that growing/shrinking crystal we’ve got and how we’ve never really used it to its full potential… I mean, if we wanted to we could just get a little piece of gold bracelet or whatever and literally make a ton of gold out of it by just growing it. We’d never have to work at all if we didn’t want to.” Dipper said.

“I don’t know… you always say that we shouldn’t abuse this magic stuff that we find, and I think that you were right about that. I mean, if you use this junk selfishly then all sorts of terrible things seem to happen. Like, every time without fail.” Mabel said carefully. _Though unlimited cash forever_ does _sound pretty tempting._

“Well its not like we’d be going full Gideon here. We aren’t trying to rule the world or anything.” Dipper said defensively.

“Eh… I don’t know… lets shelve the giant magic gold nugget plan for now. How about something less drastic… like we just transfer over to the same school? You know, some place that we could both get into.” Mabel said, her voice taking on a more serious tone.

“I have thought of that one too,” Dipper said, “and its not a bad plan… I don’t know though… after that talk we had after the bat attack… I don’t even know if I actually want to go to college at all. I mean, you were right – it would cost a lot of money and I don’t even really know what I’d want to study. Or even what I want to do with my life.”

“Is this really Dipper talking here?” Mabel asked, “Mr. Straight-A’s? Senior Science Club president? You just want to ditch your education? I thought you loved learning and studying and junk.”

“Well thats just it, I do… but I don’t know what I’d be studying at all. In school they just handed you stuff and it was your job to learn it, but here… well I don’t have any kind of focus. I mean, all the stuff I like learning about would probably get me laughed out of most of the average classes.” Dipper said.

“I guess so.” Mabel said, her face searching his and seeing the uncertainty written there. _He’s been thinking about this a lot hasn’t he? Why hasn’t he ever said anything about it before? Did he just not want to worry me or something?_

“I mean, I guess lately I’ve seen the Shack as kind of like an anchor for the future since Stan said that he was going to give it to me someday… but I have no idea when thats going to be, and I honestly hope that it isn’t for a really long time since I can’t imagine what the place would be like without him. Honestly I think it would be pretty great to run the place once I’ve maybe learned a bit more about the business, but I can’t do that _now_ , so I just feel sort of stuck wondering about what I should be doing with my life until then.” Dipper said, his voice sinking low.

“I feel that too sometimes,” Mabel replied honestly, “I mean… yeah, I don’t even really know if I want to go to art school either. I still think it would be super fun to learn how to do more things and improve my skills, but like I said before… ugh… I don’t know either.” _Not the best date conversation,_ Mabel thought as she felt herself sink down imagining the future bearing down on her like a speeding train.

“The only thing I really know for sure… you know, about what I want it… well, whatever future I have I want you to be there too.” Dipper said quietly as he reached out a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear and run his thumb gently along her cheek.

Mabel looked up quietly into her brothers face and she saw him, raw and vulnerable and with his emotions written as plain on his face as if they were etched there in burning letters. “Dipper, that has got to be the corniest thing I’ve ever heard.” she said, but with a slight catch in her voice. _He means every word too._

She saw him blush, and his ears redden as he realized just how open he had left himself and he started to pull his hand back away from her face but her own hand shot out and grabbed his wrist firmly and she kept her eyes locked on his. Mabel gently brought Dipper’s hand over to her lips and planted a soft kiss on his fingertips- even she wasn’t why she did it but she saw the dreamy look that came over Dippers face as she did.

“I want that too.” she said, her voice almost a whisper as she felt her own cheeks grow hot, “I want you to be there with me wherever I end up going. I want us to go together.”

They were silent for a few heart-beats, their breaths growing slow and heavy as they read one another’s faces, as they saw everything written on them - all the feelings too big for simple words to ever express properly. Mabel felt her pulse start to pound hard through her veins as he pulled his hand out from her grasp and brought it up around her neck and drew her to him, bringing their lips together for a slow kiss, but she could feel a fire growing between them that wouldn’t let it stay slow for long.

Mabel brought her hands up around Dipper’s neck and pulled his hat straight off his head, tossing it aside as she tangled her fingers through his hair and darted her tongue into his mouth, but to her delighted surprise he pulled her even tighter into his grip and started kissing her back just as hard rather than letting her take the lead as he often did. She could feel the energy pouring out of him with his every breath, an almost desperate need that she hadn’t felt from him before in those few wonderful times when they’d managed to find themselves alone enough to enjoy one another like this. She moaned loudly into his mouth as she felt his hands roaming over her body, sliding up under her colorful t-shirt and reaching back to slip her bra off with a speed that impressed her. _He’s gotten a lot better at that,_ she thought dreamily as she felt his hands come back around and stroke over her skin in a way that sent shivers up and down her spine and sent a moan tearing out low and hot from her throat. She darted her own hands out and started roughly tugging Dipper’s jacket off as he tried to peel her own shirt off at the same time, which left them awkwardly fumbling around for a few frantic moments until they successfully found themselves stripped to their waists. Mabel ran a hand over her boyfriends newly exposed chest and loved the feel of the muscles twitching along his sides as her touch set his nerves singing, but it wasn’t long before he was on her again, bringing his lips and teeth down on that sensitive patch of skin between her neck and collarbone which he had learned to zero in on that always managed to drive all the thoughts from her head. She tangled her fingers tight in his hair and ran her other hand down over his back, dragging her nails up his spine as she gasped and squeaked out incoherently while he sucked hard at her neck.

Mabel was so distracted that she hadn’t even noticed that Dipper had managed to unbuckle her shorts at some point, leaving enough space for him to slip his hand down between her thighs and start running his fingertips over her with those fast circular strokes that he knew drove her crazy. _And he’s definitely gotten a LOT better at that,_ Mabel thought incoherently before the pressure of his fingers sliding across her slick wet skin caused her to throw her head back and just start moaning loudly, with no worry about discovery or need to keep herself quiet out here in the forest miles away from anyone. She was clinging tightly to him now, her hands clenched sharply on his back and her teeth sinking hard into his shoulder as he drove her to a peak that left her thrashing and gasping around as if she was having some sort of fit but he just didn’t stop though, and she could feel herself being pushed past the point where pleasure became almost painful. With a low animal growl in her throat Mabel grasped a handful of Dippers hair and pulled his mouth down to hers for a crushing kiss that distracted him enough from his caresses that she could get her head clear enough to speak.

“Pants off. Now.” Mabel gasped out as she broke their kiss and felt his eyes burning into hers as he nodded mutely in agreement.

They separated quickly before reaching toward one another’s last few articles of clothes, each one wanting to strip the other – to see themselves out here in the light of day and lose themselves in one another with no thought to the uncertain future, no fears or worries outside of this perfect moment. They flung themselves at one another again, balancing precariously on their knees as they tugged and pulled as if they were wrestling, each one trying to get the other down onto the blanket first. Dipper moaned loudly as Mabel gently clamped her teeth onto his earlobe and blew her hot breath into the shell of his ear, weakening him just enough to let her push him flat onto his back with a victorious grunt before she slid herself up his body to straddle his hips with hers. Before she could get herself settled in though he grabbed her hips tightly in his hands and Mabel gave a yelp of surprise as Dipper rolled her off him and onto her side before he pounced on top of her. Dipper brought his lips to hers again, hard, and she could feel his knees moving between hers, spreading wide as he grabbed tight onto her hips again and lifted them up off the thick flannel blanket spread out beneath them. She heard him growl in frustration as he awkwardly found himself thrusting against her, sliding himself off her slickness but not quite reaching the target until she reached her hand down between them and guided him in. They both groaned out as he sank into her, and when he started moving inside her Mabel wrapped her legs crushingly tight around his waist and pulled his face to hers for another kiss, wanting to be close to him as she could in every way possible. This wasn’t anything like their first time or their third or fourth or any other time, it was harder and more desperate but that need burning inside the two of them just made everything feel more intense. Maybe it was the angle, maybe it was fact that they were here out in the open and maybe it was just their shared energy but every rock of his hips against hers drove a moan out from Mabel’s throat and she could feel her nails scratching hard against Dipper’s back, which just seemed to be driving him forward even harder. She was babbling out incoherently now, not knowing what she was saying but saying it loudly and her senses were overwhelmed with the feel of him inside her, by the scent of their sweat and deodorant mingling with the smell of the trees all around them and the taste of his lips on hers. With a spasm that wracked through her entire body and sent her toes curling she felt herself explode, and her whole body seemed to be consumed with hot white light that left her dizzy and her throat hoarse from screaming. Her head cleared and could see his face now, locked in concentration and she knew he was holding himself back – focused on her, like he always did. She slid her hands up from his back to pull his face to hers again and their eyes locked as she nodded to him slightly, that silent little signal that they’d used since their first night together. She pulled him tight to her chest and clamped her teeth down on his earlobe again, her hot breath driving him over the edge as she whispered out a frantic panting “I love you.” to him before she heard him groan and shudder on top of her. They lay frozen together, both locked and reveling in the sensations of each other for a few quiet minutes.

He slid off her unsteadily before he collapsed back against the thick flannel blanket, his arms spread wide and his breath coming out in ragged pants, and she crawled over to join him shakily and draped herself across his chest. Mabel’s lips curled into a deeply contented smile as she felt his arms circle around her and pulled her into a tight grip and she squeezed him just as tightly in return as they lay silent under the rustling branches of the trees.

Dipper was the first to break the silence, “Well… I feel a lot less stressed now at least.” he panted quietly.

“Mhmmm” Mabel murmured in agreement, “You shouldn’t worry so much. One way or another I’m not going anywhere without you, you big goober. You’re mine, remember?” _And I’m yours,_ she thought, _totally and unconditionally._

“I’m still not getting that tattoo though.” Dipper joked quietly as he bent to plant a soft kiss on the top of Mabel’s head.

“Are you sure? It could be a manly looking ’M’. Plus, who would see it but me?” Mabel teased as she absentmindedly walked her hand up and down his chest and belly, causing him to stifle a giggle from the ticklish sensation.

“No, still not sold on the idea.” he said as he brushed the damp hair back from Mabel’s face, his fingers lingering on the soft skin of her cheeks and brow as he stroked her face. She glanced up at him and felt her heart soar at seeing the affection in his face, that unguarded sense of friendship and tenderness that was the core of their relationship.

“How about if I got a matching one?” she asked thoughtfully only half-serious, “Like a ’D’… ooh! Or I could get the constellation just like your birthmark.”

“Not necessary,” Dipper said as he frowned slightly and absentmindedly brushed a bit of his own hair down over his forehead at the mention of his most hated facial feature.

“Hey, I love your birthmark-” Mabel said playfully as she reached up and brushed the hair back, “-its a part of you, so there’s no need to try and hide it from me. I mean, I’ve seen the rest of you pretty clearly already… especially right now.”

Mabel grinned wide as she saw a slow flush overtake her brothers face and he slowly sat up from the blanket and scanned the clearing around themselves. “We kind of went a little crazy throwing the clothes around didn’t we? I can’t see where my underwear went…”

“It’ll show up eventually,” Mabel said lazily as she lay back and folded her arms behind her head. “In the meantime lets enjoy a little sun. Bodies are nothing to be ashamed of after all.”

“Help me look for it anyway and I’ll join you, I just feel kind of exposed here.” Dipper said turning around and Mabel felt a full bodied laugh overtake her when she noticed that he had a cherry flavored gummy koala stuck to one of his butt cheeks from their earlier exertions on the picnic blanket.

“Dude, I will give you five bucks if you eat it!” Mabel dared him after she had pointed it out and he’d peeled off the stray candy with a slight grimace.

“No way!” Dipper responded with a grossed out laugh, his face screwed up into an exaggerated frown.

“Twenty bucks! You know I’m good for it.” Mabel said.

“You just admitted to counterfeiting! No way I’m trusting money from you anymore. Plus, I’m not eating this thing for any amount of cash.” he said as he pitched the unfortunate candy into the river with a gentle toss of his hand.

“Boo! Captain Buzzkill has possessed my boyfriend somehow… if only Doctor Funtimes was here to save me from this nightmare.” Mabel said teasingly to Dipper as he retrieved his stray boxer shorts from the low tree branch where Mabel had enthusiastically flung them earlier.

“Why are you so intent on me eating butt-candy?” Dipper asked as he settled himself down beside Mabel on the blanket once again, his underwear set aside next to the small pile of their clothes that he’d made.

“I dunno, cause it would be funny?” Mabel said, “Plus, you’re going to need the energy for round two.” she added as she sidled in closer to him and planted a soft kiss on his neck.

“There’s going to be a round two?” Dipper asked, a note of cautious excitement in his voice as he started to run his hand slowly up and down her bare side, his touch sending a slight shiver through her frame.

“Well, we have the afternoon to ourselves…” Mabel purred in a silky voice, “what do you think?”

* * *

They arrived back home some hours later with the sun already coming down low over the trees, and Dipper felt sore all over. Whether it was from the hike back or from the rest of their afternoons activities he couldn’t say for sure, but either way Dipper wasn’t complaining (though he did wince when he leaned back against the drivers seat and he felt the enthusiastic scratch marks that Mabel had left down his back).

 _Okay, maybe we don’t have a solution yet,_ Dipper thought to himself as he pulled the car into the shacks parking lot and gave Mabel’s hand a slight squeeze before they had to make their way back into their house and the distance they kept from one another there to avoid suspicion, _but we still have time. I mean… I’m not the only one in this… she wants to stay with me just as much as I want to stay with her._

_One way or another we’re going to find a way to make this work. Maybe it won’t be easy, but when I’m with her… I’m sure we can do this._

_But if this is going to work… I’m going to need to drop myself out of that school._ He frowned at the thought. _Oh my folks are NOT going to like that… and they are definitely not going to like the whole 'maybe college isn’t for me’ thing…_

The future still loomed over Dipper, with hints of some rocky times ahead… very close by… but he turned and saw Mabel and she gave him a cheerful grin in return that set his mind at ease. He felt he had two anchors now in the uncertainty ahead, the Shack and Mabel – and with those two in his corner he felt he could do anything.


	10. Chapter 9

_July 22_ _nd_

“I swear this town can’t go a week without some kind of disaster.” Mabel grumbled quietly to Dipper as the pair began to sneak carefully along the edges of the room, her eyes sweeping up to the cavernous vault of the ceiling, searching for a glimpse of that pale spidery form that they had been chasing down the moonlit alleys of Gravity Falls for the past hour.

“Well, you’re the one who always said that she wanted to see some vampires.” Dipper joked testily as the twins found themselves with their backs to the wall of the old warehouse, his eyes darting frantically around the dim corners of the room for any hint of movement among the piles of long abandoned crates.

“Yeah, but I had wanted to see hot ones though – this thing looked like Batboy’s deformed cousin!” Mabel snapped back as she held the weird makeshift contraption that they had cobbled together in the attic of the shack earlier that day at the ready.

“Should I be jealous?” Dipper teased as he tightened the grip on the thick wooden spike in his hands.

“Nah, even if he  _was_  cute we’d still have to kill him- I’d probably just feel a little bad about it.” Mabel said, sweeping the room cautiously with the barrel of the thick hollow tube, her finger lingering over the devices switch and her eyes sharp. Dipper could see by the way that her tongue darted out every now and then to briefly moisten her lips that she was nervous, but she gave him a small smile when her eyes met his and he felt his own nervousness begin to dampen.

Try as he might, it was hard to imagine the sharpened rake handle clutched in Dipper’s sweaty palms would be an adequate weapon against the  _thing_ that they had chased through the town and cornered in the abandoned ruins of the old Gleeful factory, but he did his best to trust the weird hodgepodge of vampire lore he’d cobbled together out of actual occult texts and cheesy monster movies to give him confidence.

_Okay, I’ve got the wooden stake, Mabel’s packing enough ultraviolet lightbulbs in that thing we made to (hopefully) fry it to a crisp & we’ve both got like 40 pounds of garlic hanging around our necks… well mostly garlic, I’m pretty sure some of it is onions… and I think there’s a carrot here too. We probably should have looked more closely before we just grabbed all that stuff from the grocery store but we WERE in a pretty big hurry. I hope they don’t mind that we had to pay them in Stan Bucks._

A rustling noise among the boxes caused both of them to freeze up briefly before Mabel screamed out an extremely enthusiastic “Get some!” and flipped the switch on the enormous UV flashlight that they (mostly Dipper) had slapped together out of old flashlights, broken mirrors and stolen wiring. A bright purple beam flashed out and Mabel swept it over the crates near the source of the disturbance as she made laser-ish noises with her mouth through gritted teeth.

_Leave it to Mabel to provide her own sound effects._

A lone raccoon scampered out from behind the boxes and retreated into a further corner of the old warehouse. Mabel breathed out a sigh of relief but she felt Dipper’s hand shoot out and grab her shoulder tightly when she was about to flip the off-switch on the machine.

“Okay, you better keep that thing on. If I know my horror movie clichés the monster is going to pop out now when we’re all ‘whew, it was just a raccoon’, and then as soon as I turn around it eats my face.” Dipper said.

“Why just  _your_  face?” Mabel asked, easing her finger off the switch and keeping the beam trained on the shadows around them. “Isn’t my face tasty enough for it try and eat too?”

“You’re the cute girl, you get to live to the end to kill it. I’m pretty much guaranteed to die before the final confrontation though, it’s a horror movie boyfriend thing.” Dipper joked nervously.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with Soos, but don’t worry – I’ll make sure to avenge you if he does get you.” Mabel said in an overly solemn voice before she shouted an enthusiastic “AHA!” and grunted as she hefted the beam directly over their heads and bathed the pale rubbery flesh of the creature hunched on the ceiling above them in the weird purple light streaming from the tube in her hands.

The creature gave a shrieking hiss and clambered awkwardly (but with surprising speed) across the ceiling like an insect, its brittle claws clattering against the rusted sheet metal of the factory roof as it sought to flee the pursuing beam of light. Dipper could see its bizarre proportions now that it was illuminated clearly in the violet rays– the too-long arms, the stretched and twisted fingers, the oddly short and bent legs with their stubby hooked toes tipped in blackened nails. In every line of its form it seemed to scream of  _wrongness_ in Dipper’s brain, of something unhealthy and cancerous when compared to any true living creature.

_Even the giant vampire bat wasn’t this creepy, and that thing tried to eat me. I mean, this thing tried to eat me earlier too but its still way creepier._

Acting quickly Dipper grabbed one of the garlands of garlic (and assorted other vegetables) dangling from around his neck and whirled it over his head before letting it fly, and the spinning coil wrapped like a snake around the retreating creatures arm. At the touch of the strange missile on its skin the monster gave a high keening wail and fell awkwardly to the floor with a crashing thud, its long crooked limbs flailing wildly in the air as it lay twitching on its back like a dying spider.

“Wowzers… I almost feel bad for the guy.” Mabel said as the watched the creatures spasms with a sympathetic wince on her face.

“Yeah… me too.” Dipper said quietly, his grip on the makeshift stake in his hands growing slack.

“Maybe we should let it go? I mean, we don't  _know_ that its hurt anyone for sure yet. Maybe he’s just misunderstood?” Mabel said as she turned to Dipper with a questioning look on her face.

Before Dipper could form an opinion one way or the other about the matter the creature gave a full throated roar and tore the garland of soup ingredients off from its arm and flung them across the warehouse, its pale flesh mottled and blistered blue-black where the garlic bulbs had rested against its skin. The twins watched with widening eyes as the thing turned its oddly human-shaped head toward them to draw pale flabby lips back from a mouthful of jagged yellowed fangs before it shrieked out at them. It stood hunched and ready, with its thin yet muscular arms flung wide and madness burned in its too-small red eyes; madness and hunger and a palpable aura of  _hate_ that seemed to envelop the creature like a shroud.

“Nope.” Dipper said with a decisive shake of his head as he tightened the grip on the rake handle and brought its point up defensively.

“Yeah, I guess not.” Mabel said quickly before she raised her beam once more and took the creature full in the face with the stream of pulsing purple light, causing it to drop to its stubby knees and fling its too-large hands over its eyes as it wailed in frustration and pain.

Taking this as his cue Dipper lunged forward and stabbed at the vampires chest with the rough point of his crude stake, aiming where he hoped the heart was. His arms jolted painfully as the wooden spike speared into the dense flesh of the incapacitated creature and with a fierce grunt he forced the sharpened tip of the rake handle into the monsters torso and out through the other side. The creatures wails took on a bubbling note and it flailed about madly, catching Dipper full in the chest with one of its out flung arms to send him crashing into a pile of crates, stunned and with the room spinning into darkness. He heard his sister scream angrily, but the sounds were growing faint as his eyelids grew heavy- his last thought before he lost consciousness was hoping that Mabel would be okay.

* * *

When Dipper came to once again it was to the sight of Mabel bending over him and cradling his head in her lap, running her hands over his forehead and through the brown curls of his hair. He could smell something foul in the air, a stench like onions mingled with burning hair and cooking meat, and the ceiling overhead danced with shadows and pale rays of hot orange light.

“Did we win?” he asked weakly as he tried to shake the pain from his head and immediately regretted doing so when he felt the room swim around him nauseatingly.

“Totally. I avenged the hell out of you.” Mabel joked as her soft cool hands stroked her brothers face comfortingly. As his vision cleared he could see that her eyes were red and her cheeks damp, but she had a smile on her face as well.

_She has such a nice smile._

“Great job. I think you should be the one to drive us back to the Shack… I may have a concussion.” Dipper said, mostly joking but with a wince when he felt a sharp throbbing in the back of his scalp where he’d struck the crates hardest. As he moved he realized his ribs and back also felt like they were on fire with pain and hoped that nothing was broken.

 _Stupid boxes of old Lil Gideon merchandise. Even locked up in an asylum he_ still _manages to find a way to injure me._

“You sure you don’t want to stop by the clinic or something first?” Mabel asked with concern in her voice.

“I don’t think they would accept Stan Bucks there.” Dipper said.

“They don’t really accept them anywhere, but if you’re all banged up like this then I guess you can’t make a decent escape when you try and pay with them.” Mabel replied.

“That is their one flaw as a currency.” Dipper joked, wincing a little as the small chuckle he felt building in his chest jostled his injured torso.

“If you feel good enough to be a smart-butt then you’re probably good enough to go home.” Mabel said with a note of barely disguised relief in her voice, and after a few more minutes of rest she helped Dipper to his feet and propped herself up under his shoulder like a crutch to make sure he could keep his balance.

“So how did you end up finishing the thing off?” Dipper asked as they began their unsteady walk together out the warehouse as he glanced and saw a twisted pile of charred remains on the warehouse floor behind them, flames still licking here and there over its surface.

“Oh, well it was pretty much helpless when you staked it – I just threw the rest of the garlic on it and kept shining the light till it stopped moving.” Mabel replied.

“So I guess it burst into flames or something when it died, like in the movies?” Dipper asked, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the rancid smell wafting through the air.

“Nope - it just lay there, but I did use some matches and expired cans of Lil Gideon brand hairspray to set it on fire though.” Mabel said.

“Why on earth would you do that?” Dipper asked in confusion.

“To make sure it didn’t get back up again… and also to just let it know what happens when something tries to lay a hand on my Dipper.” Mabel said in a grim voice.

“Huh… I didn’t think a can of hairspray would be enough to make that much fire.” Dipper said.

“One can no- but four cans does the job pretty good.” Mabel said with a curt nod of her head.

“Have I mentioned how sexy you are when you get scary?” Dipper said jokingly.

“I could stand to hear it more often.” Mabel replied, planting a kiss on Dippers cheek and though he winced inwardly at the jolt of her head bumping his own he wouldn’t have traded the feel of her soft lips brushing tenderly against his skin for anything.

_July 25_ _th_

The dusty windows of the Mystery Shacks attic tinted the beams of the midday sun a warm amber color which made the already yellowed pages of Dippers journal seem somehow ancient and magical despite the fact that he knew book which his sister had created wasn’t really much more than a few months old. Mabel had even revealed a few of the tricks she had used to artificially age the book during a slow business day at the Shack, such as lightly staining the pages with coffee to darken them and roughing up the edges with a nail file to give them a worn and battered appearance.

 _I don’t think I’ve ever given her enough credit for her art skills – this thing really is a masterpiece,_ Dipper thought to himself affectionately as he ran his hand gently over the page, tracing the tip of his index finger along a line of his sisters beautifully curled handwriting that described the proper way to fend off amorous gnomes (leaf-blowers and/or repeated punches to the face). Her sketch of one of the odd little creatures wasn’t just a simple copy of the original page from the '3’ Journal from their childhood, but was done in her own unique style and seemed so lively that Dipper wouldn’t have been  _too_ surprised if the weird little man on the page would have sprung out at him. He flipped further along toward the end of the book where Mabel’s original pages ended and his own more precise but somewhat less aesthetically pleasing entries began.

It had been a few days since the twins encounter with the feral vampire and though Mabel had fussed over Dipper at first he knew that she didn’t have anything to worry about. Once he had recovered from the dizziness of being knocked out he really hadn’t taken any lasting injury more serious than some scrapes and a few heavy bruises to the ribs, though those still hurt like a son of a bitch every time he tried to turn his torso too far one way or another. Even if it wasn’t life threatening Mabel had insisted that Dipper stay laid up in bed for a while to fully recover, with the twins having told Stan that Dipper had gotten his injuries after taking a bad fall on a hike. Stan hadn’t looked like he fully believed their story and griped a bit about Dipper just trying to find an excuse to wriggle out of Shack duty, but he didn’t pry further into the real cause of the injury and he’d even been up to visit Dipper in the attic bedroom once or twice for a friendly (if slightly uncomfortable) visit. It wasn’t that Dipper hadn’t been touched to see that Stan was concerned about him, he was just worried that the old man would notice the fact that Mabel’s bed didn’t look like it had been slept in for weeks (which it hadn’t been), or the fact that the zebra-print bra of hers that Dipper likes seeing on her so much was dangling off one of his bedposts from where she had flung it or any of the seemingly millions of other telltale signs that the teen was sure were blaring out “we’re sleeping together” in 40 foot tall neon letters for all the world to see. Fortunately Stan wasn’t as much of a fan of detective stories as his great nephew, and was nearsighted to boot, so picking up on clues wasn’t really his strong suit and nothing bad ever came from those visits.

Dipper picked up a pen from the battered old desktop and started reading through the original entry he’d made on the creature when they had returned fresh from their hunt, correcting the spelling and adding a few notes and thoughts which he hadn’t considered at the time (though in fairness to himself he had still been groggy from a pretty serious blow to the head when he had written them that night). The illustration he’d made of the vampire in the latest entry was admittedly pretty terrible since drawing had never been something he was particularly good at, and he considered asking Mabel to do her own rendition of the monster for him.

 _Maybe later,_ he thought as he finished writing a note about the effect of fire on vampire flesh (“it burns like napalm soaked in gasoline”) and then put the pen down with a sigh. He had weightier things on his mind at the moment than the flammable qualities of the undead – namely the matter of his future.

He’d been putting what he considered “the heavy stuff” off for a while now but there really weren’t that many excuses he could make anymore, either to himself or anyone else. The fact was that he DID finally have a real plan starting to seriously form in his mind, but it wasn’t one that was likely to go over well with his parents. Actually, short of deciding to take up the life of a career criminal he couldn’t really think of a future  _less_ likely to please his parents. He’d already called the college he had been enrolled in and canceled his upcoming round of classes… he’d actually done it the day after his most recent picnic with Mabel, though he hadn’t told her about it yet. Dipper hadn’t really had any firm idea what he was doing at that point, but he felt that if he just took that first hard step onto unknown ground that he’d be able to think his way through the situation. It wasn’t like he was trying to hide anything from her, in fact he’d actually been on the verge of telling Mabel about his impulsive decision when the sudden appearance of a bloodsucking monster in the sleepy little town had put his personal life on hold for a day or two. It was already dead now though, it was hard to imagine anything deader than the smoldering pile of ash that Mabel had left on the dusty old warehouse floor, and that meant that it was time for Dipper to confront the situation head on.

_First things first… talk to Mabel tonight after she gets back from hanging out with her friends._

Dipper rubbed his temples and took a calming breath before pushing the chair back out from under the desk to stagger back to his bed. It hadn’t really been an exhausting day, but he still flopped back onto the creaky old mattress and stared up at the cobwebs and the familiar shapes of the mold patches on the ceiling (including Mabel’s most recent favorite, Daryl Jr.).

_Okay, this shouldn’t go too badly. The fact is that I’ve already dropped my classes and its now too late to re-register for them at this point, so there’s no going back on this decision no matter what. What’s the worst that could happen?_

_Well… Mabel could get extremely pissed off at me for doing this without telling her, call me a giant idiot and then laugh in my face about my plan before dumping me on the spot. That would be pretty much the worst._

_Calm down you spaz - she’s not going to dump you. She loves you, and you love her - that’s the only reason you’re even_   **trying**   _something this stupid instead of just resigning yourself to that regular boring humdrum life that you’ve been dreading since high school._

_What if she says no?_

_Well, yeah that would obviously suck - but what if she says yes? You can’t get anything in life without risk… and the bigger the risk, the greater the reward. Plus you’ve already fought an actual real life freaking_ vampire _this week so what are a few potentially uncomfortable conversations compared to that?_

Dipper shook his head with a small smile on his face at the thought.

_Somehow its still surprisingly a bit scarier than the vampire… though not by a lot._

He frowned briefly at the ceiling.

_I really need to stop talking to myself so much._

* * *

The sun had fallen over the horizon and the first few stars had already begun to peek out from the clouds when Mabel staggered her way cheerfully through the door of the Mystery Shack, waving an overly enthusiastic goodbye to Candy’s retreating car. She glanced carefully around the room in case she had woken anyone, even though it was far from late, but she was satisfied to see that the place appeared to be empty. Stan was probably off at one of those mysterious Lodge gatherings of his again, which didn’t seem to meet on any kind of schedule that Mabel could figure out… some nights he just would declare that he was going off to a meeting and disappear abruptly and other nights he’d spend hours practically glued to the TV whenever a boxing match was on… or an old black and white romance movie.

Mabel giggled to herself at the memory of the day she’d discovered Stan’s inexplicable hidden love for those films - he had been so serious about swearing her to secrecy that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he tried to make her take some sort of blood oath or something. As furious as he seemed to be about being found out, the end result was just that when no one else was around the Shack the two of them would often end up watching one together while sharing a tub of ice cream. Dipper was terrible company for any kind of sappy film, so it was nice to have someone to hang out with for that stuff even if it had turned out to be her incredibly crusty great uncle.

 _You never can judge a book by its cover I guess,_ Mabel thought with a smile as she headed back to the stairs leading to the attic bedroom.

It had been a pretty full day so far, but she’d decided to cut her evening shorter than usual when the girls wanted to go out to the dance club - not that she would have minded some dancing or anything, its just that she was  _pretty_ sure that Grenda and Candy were going to try to set her up to meet some guys and she wasn’t up for an evening of increasingly awkward excuses for why various potential dates were unacceptable.

 _I guess I_ **could**   _tell them that I’m already seeing so_ _meone, but its not like it would get any_ less  _awkward if they_ _found out that the guy I’m seeing is Dipper. I mean, they’re my best friends and all but I’m pretty sure that something like this might be just a bit too heavy to drop on them anytime soon. Maybe they’ll finally be ready to hear it when we’re all hanging out in a nursing home together in 60 years or something?_

Thinking of Dipper got her wondering how his injuries were coming along. When she had walked him back up the stairs of the Shack the night of the attack and helped him peel off his torn shirt she’d almost felt like crying at the sight of his bruised up chest and back. She knew how much Dipper hated to see her cry though and she’d put on a brave face and teased him for acting like a baby and whining when she had applied some stinging medicine to his scrapes and bruises. The fact was that she couldn’t help but worry about him whenever it came to these crazy situations that they were inevitably drawn into… they’d had some really close calls this summer and Mabel hated the idea of Dipper getting himself seriously hurt. Thankfully his experience and luck had kept him from suffering anything worse than a bad scrape so far. Mabel had spent the last two days fussing over Dipper until he’d finally gotten fed up with her bringing him chicken soup and snapping at him if he tried to leave the bed and he had insisted that she go hang out with her friends or something for a day. They’d fought a little about it, but eventually Mabel had relented once she had seen that Dipper really wasn't  _that_  badly hurt after all and would probably manage to survive the day on his own… provided he didn’t try to go out and pick a fight with a mummy or something when she wasn’t around.

“Hey Dip - you decent in there?” Mabel called out as she reached the outside of the door to their attic bedroom.

“Nope, come right in.” he called back in that dry sarcastic tone that always brought a little smile to her face.

_Okay, Grunkle Stan definitely has to be out of the house right now if he’s going around saying junk like that, even jokingly._

She pushed the door open and found her brother almost exactly as she’d left him earlier that day, lying back on his bed with his hands tucked behind his head and staring at the ceiling as if he had a grudge against it. He hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt since he woke up and Mabel winced a little inside her mind at the sight of the still vivid colors of the bruises plastered over his torso.

_Well, at least he looks better than yesterday._

“Hey,” he called out to her, his voice gentle and with a small smile on his lips when his eyes turned to meet hers.

Mabel had noticed that Dipper got a certain tone to his voice when they are alone that she never hears him use anywhere else - its friendly, a little quiet and she would swear that he tries to make his voice just a tiny bit deeper than sounds natural for him. She wonders if she does anything silly like that when she’s around him, pondering the question even as she unconsciously brushes a nonexistent stray lock of hair behind her ear and flashes him a dazzling braces-free smile in return.

“Hey back at you broski - how are you feeling?” she asks, tamping down the little flutter of happiness she feels at seeing him. She takes her self-imposed medical duties seriously when it comes to monster-related injuries.

“Bored - I’ve already lost count of the number of times that I’ve counted the planks in the ceiling. There are 67 by the way.” Dipper replied dryly.

“I meant physically, you butt.” Mabel said with a falsely fierce scowl in his direction.

“A little hungry, but otherwise fine. It doesn’t seem to hurt as much today.” Dipper replied semi-honestly.

“That’s good. Would you want something to eat? I’m feeling kinda hungry myself and I didn’t have any cash to get food when I was out with the girls.” Mabel said.

“Ran out of counterfeit twenties?” Dipper asked half-jokingly.

“Well my kit to make new ones was too heavy to bring up on the trip.” Mabel replied, also only half-jokingly.

“I still can’t tell if you’re serious about the whole forgery thing- c'mon, level with me here.” Dipper said.

“A girls got to have  **some**  secrets,” Mabel said cheekily, “Now how does grilled cheese sound? I’m pretty sure that the ingredients for that weren’t expired when I checked the fridge earlier so it should be safe.”

“Gosh, do you think I’m finally ready for solid food?” Dipper asked in sarcastic wonderment.

“How does eating a big fat bowl of nothing sound then?” Mabel snapped back.

“Grilled cheese actually sounds awesome and you’re really sweet for putting up with me when I’m like this.” Dipper said quickly, his voice softening again. “Would you want me to go help you make it?”

“Nah, I can handle grilling a little cheese,” Mabel said as she stretched her arms wide with a small yawn and started to slip out of her nice going-out sweater to exchange it for something a little less dressy.

She glanced back and saw the way Dipper’s eyes seemed to trail hungrily over her freshly exposed skin and felt her cheeks flush just a little pinker than normal at the realization. Ever since their little love marathon during their picnic date the two hadn’t had a lot of chances to enjoy some alone time, especially after Dipper had to go and turn himself into a vampires punching bag.

Mabel shook the stray thought from her mind and turned toward the colorful pile of clothes on her bed to pick out something comfy to wear for the evening when she heard the creak of bedsprings behind her. She could feel the floorboards under her feet shift slightly as Dipper padded up behind her, wrapping his long lean arms around her and bringing his lips down on that nice little patch of skin on her neck that always made her shiver with delight when he kissed it.

“You know, Stan’s going to be out for a while yet - he said it was going to be an especially late meeting tonight and not to wait up for him. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves… it seems a shame to waste the opportunity,” Dipper whispered warmly into her ear as he continued to run his hands over her soft exposed skin.

_Mmm… that really would be a shame wouldn’t it?_

“Why Dipper, you scallywag,” Mabel purred as she wriggled herself back up against him happily.

The moment she brushed against him she could hear his sudden sharp indrawn breath and feel his stomach muscles twitch when she bumped into one of his more raw bruises. _  
_

 _Bad Mabel! No sexing up the patient! That’s pretty much nursing 101!,_ she scolded herself.

Regretfully she shook the little clouds of pleasure from her head and skillfully shimmied her way out from the warm cage of his arms.

“Whoa there partner - Doc Mabel says you aren’t allowed to be getting into any frisky business till you get better.” Mabel says in her most authoritative voice, crossing her arms over her chest sternly. She still hadn’t found a shirt to wear and was worried that her strawberry print bra might be lacking in proper seriousness when it comes to the task of scolding frisky injured boyfriends.

“C'mon, I’m definitely healed up enough for this.” Dipper says with a warm smile, moving over toward her and putting his arms over her neck to pull her in for a soft kiss, which she melts into warmly. Mabel growls in frustration at herself for giving in to the kiss so easily and breaks it after what feels like far too short a time to give Dipper a frank appraisal.

“Dip, your torso still looks like you took a bunch of green and purple crayons and tried to do an abstract painting on it.” she declares.

“Whatever… it doesn’t even hurt anymore.” Dipper says dismissively.

Mabel scoots in to kiss him once more and when Dipper eagerly leans toward her she jabs a finger with gentle pressure against an especially purple patch of skin. The little yelping sound he made in response was kind of cute but definitely not sexy.

“Sorry bro-bro, the bruised up and in pain look isn’t really revving my engines,” Mabel says, “Just concentrate on healing already so that we can get things back to normal in the bedroom department, because I’ve really been missing your kissing.” she finishes, giving him a warm but definitely non-sexual kiss on the cheek.

“Well if I didn’t already have enough motivation to get better before, I guess I do now.” Dipper said with a sigh as he slumped back toward his bed.

“So what did you get up to today while I was out with the girls?” Mabel asked as she tried to get his mind somewhere less frustrating for the both of them.

“Absolutely nothing - I spell-checked all my entries in that journal you gave me. Twice. That’s how bored I’ve been.” Dipper replied distractedly.

“Sorry you’ve been cooped up in here like that - maybe next time you’ll try not to let yourself get smacked around by the undead so bad.” Mabel joked.

“Its not like I was  _trying_ to get myself hurt.” Dipper snapped.

“Sure, like you aren't  _totally_  into me nursing you back to health… anyway its not the first time this has happened, those zombies did a number on you too.”

“That was mostly just scratches - most of the blood that time wasn’t even mine.”

“Well if we ever meet a Frankenstein just make sure you don’t dive face first into his fist - I like you with your nose and eyes and teeth and junk where they are supposed to be.” Mabel said with a smile.

“Actually Frankenstein was the scientist who made the monster, not the name of the monster itself. I think I could probably take the scientist in a fight.”

“Dork.” she said with a roll of her eyes.

Dipper shrugged in response, but was happy to see Mabel looking a little less stressed than she had been in the last few days.

“Guilty as charged,” he replied.

“Well, how about I go grill us some cheese then? You stay here and alphabetize your socks or whatever it is you do when I’m not around to make you have fun.” Mabel said as she headed back toward the door, rushing out before Dipper could reply so that she could have the last word.

 _God I love her,_ Dipper thought to himself with a grin as he heard her footsteps clattering down the stairs.

* * *

The twins were half-way though their slightly over-burned sandwiches when Dipper had announced, as casually as possible, that he had dropped out of school.

Mabel hadn’t registered the comment for a few seconds, having been in the middle of an anecdote about some ridiculous thing that Grenda and her new beau had gotten up to, before she suddenly realized what he had just said and had responded with a startled “Bwuh?” before she began choking on her dinner.

By the time Dipper had helped her Heimlich out the chunk of food clogging her throat Mabel was madder than Dipper had ever seen her before.

“When the heck were you going to tell me this particular piece of news?” she demanded, her eyes flashing dangerously.

“Okay, I was actually going to let you know right before the whole vampire thing came up but I figured that blood-hungry monsters were slightly more important.” Dipper said carefully.

“Why would you ever think that?” Mabel asked incredulously.

“Um… because one is a potentially deadly undead horror and the other is just kind of a thing about my personal life.” Dipper said, confused.

“Boys have no sense of priorities.” Mabel griped.

“Okay, so how in trouble am I here?” Dipper asked.

“From me? Like, 4 or 5 percent I guess… I kind of expected you to pull something like this after that last chat we had during the picnic. From mom and dad though? I don’t think there are enough adjectives for how pissed they are going to be.” Mabel said seriously.

“Thanks, thats going to make telling them a lot easier.” Dipper groused quietly.

“Well, I’m glad that I got to hear it before someone else at least.” Mabel said grumpily.

“I’m really sorry for doing it without telling you - it was just kind of a crazy impulse and I felt so good after doing it that I was sure I had made the right decision.” Dipper apologized.

“You probably did… I mean, if you were as uninterested in school as you sounded then it was probably the best thing for you to do. I still wish you’d told me first though, you butt.” Mabel said.

“I’ll find some way to make it up to you - possibly involving ice cream?” Dipper asked hopefully.

“Prepare your wallet, because if its ice cream we’re talking then you are going to see a serious dent in your savings.” Mabel replied grimly.

“I didn’t have a lot of those to start with, but your warning is duly noted.” Dipper said.

“Okay, so you’re pretty much a bum now - whats the big plan?” Mabel asked, leaning in toward him confidentially.

“Well… its not so much a plan as it is… um…  _not_  a plan?” Dipper said weakly.

“Wait, you’re telling me that you went and did something like this  _without_ having a giant 100 step escape plan set up first?” Mabel said, confused.

“Yeah… I guess some of your impulsiveness kind of rubbed off on me.” Dipper said sheepishly.

“Well you’ve been rubbing on me plenty this summer so I guess it makes sense.” Mabel said with a wide grin.

“Shut up… anyway I don’t have a  **plan** -plan, but I have kind of… I guess an idea?” Dipper said.

“What is it?” Mabel asked.

“Well… would you want to maybe run away with me?” Dipper asked, his voice quiet.

“Run away to where?” Mabel asked.

“Everywhere.” Dipper said.

“What the frick-frack are you talking about?” Mabel said, confused.

“Look, I’ve been thinking a lot and I know what I want out of life, what I  _really_  want and I think I’ve finally figured it out. I want adventure. The stuff we’ve seen, the things we’ve done.. I can’t go back to normal after all this. I don’t think I really could even if I wanted to… but I don’t want to go alone. I need you with me. Go with me – lets go see the whole world and all the crazy stuff in it together. Be my partner.” Dipper said, his voice earnest and heavy with tension. This was it… the moment he’d been fearing and hoping for.

Mabel didn’t say anything for a few moments, but her worried expression softened and she sniffled slightly as she met her brothers honest gaze with her own.

“That’s got to be the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard you dork. Of course I’ll go with you.” she said, giving him a gentle punch to the arm as punctuation.

“Really?” he asked, his voice heavy with relief and hopefulness.

“Duh, idiot… I mean, I love you… heck, if I didn’t already have a soulmate then you’d be it.” Mabel said.

“I’m always going to be second banana to that pig aren’t I?” Dipper asked in a false grumpy tone.

“Well if you looked more adorable eating corn cobs you might stand a chance but so far he’s still at the top of the soulmate pyramid. You’re cuter though… at least when it comes to the sexy sort of way.” Mabel said reassuringly.

“Well that’s something at least… also are you totally sure about going along with me on this? I don’t want to drag you into anything that you might regret.” Dipper asked, suddenly freaking out slightly as all the little conversations and scenarios that he’d been playing out in his head for days no longer mattered in the face of reality.

“I think I’d regret not going along more… I mean, I’m pretty sure you’d get yourself devoured by a chupacabra or something the second you got out of my sight - and what good is a half-eaten boyfriend?” Mabel joked.

“Well, its not the reason I would have picked for coming with me but I’m not too proud to take it.” Dipper sighed.

“Also there’s still the whole _'I’m in love with you’_  thing, which is a pretty heavy weight on that side of the scale.” Mabel added.

Dippers hand snaked out and found Mabel’s and their fingers twined together warmly. He leaned against her, resting his head gently on hers and just enjoying the scent of her curls tickling his nose.

“Well, the hard parts over at least.” Dipper murmured into his sisters hair.

“Really? Because I think the hard part would be telling our folks that all that money they put aside for educating your rebellious butt is going to go to waste.” Mabel said.

“No, the hard part was freaking out over what  _you_  were going to think… honestly at this point I’m up for anything they have to say about it.” Dipper replied.

“That’s kind of sweet in a weird way,” Mabel teased.

“Anyway what’s the worst they can do- ground me? I’m old enough to vote.” Dipper joked.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t still try.” Mabel said.

“Sticking around to get grounded kind of goes against the whole principle behind running away though.” Dipper said.

“Yeah… oh man, its just hitting me how serious this is. What are we going to do about food and shelter and gas and junk like that? Where are we going to go?” Mabel asked in a somewhat worried voice.

“Well we have a pair of matching utility belts full of magical doodads that could come in handy, so I’m pretty sure we aren’t going to be completely helpless out there… and as far what we can do… well, I want to see about filling that journal you gave me up. I bet there’s a million mysteries out there that need solving… a million things to see that no one has ever seen before. There’s a whole world full of adventure out there that I want to share with you.” Dipper said.

Mabel leaned in to press her lips gently against Dippers, loving the warm feel of his breath mingling with hers and the sound of his happy sigh in her ears.

_That really does sound nice…_

“Alright, I’m in… I mean, I was in before but now I'm  _in-_ in… I want to see where we end up going and what we end up doing… I have always wanted to see the world after all.” Mabel said.

“We can try and see all of it… London, France…” Dipper began,

“-Translovakia,” Mabel interrupted.

“It vould be nice to see ze Old Country again,” Dipper joked, falling back into his goofy fake accent.

They laughed and leaned back together against the creaking headboard of Dipper’s bed, arms wrapped companionably around each others shoulders.

“When do we start?” Mabel asked.

“I dunno… I was thinking of telling our folks tomorrow to see how they reacted and then just playing it from there.” Dipper said.

“That’s pretty soon… but I guess there’s no time like the present. You’ve really gotten the hang of this impulsiveness thing haven’t you? I should rub off on you more often.” Mabel joked.

“I wouldn’t object to that.” Dipper said, leering at her as he leaned in for a kiss. She shoved him away gently and responded by childishly sticking her tongue out at him.

“Nope, you’re still on injury suspension from all pantsless activities for tonight buddy - try to use this time to figure out the next step in this master plan of yours, okay?” Mabel said.

“Alright… is cuddling still on the table though?” Dipper asked hopefully.

“Dip, what kind of monster do you take me for? Cuddling is always on the table.” Mabel said as she gingerly wrapped her arms around him and snuggled carefully into his warmth. She could feel Dipper twitch slightly as she pressed up against the occasional bruise or scrape, but his arms tightened gently around her despite the pain and he planted a tender kiss on the top of her head.

“Love you Mabel.” he whispered.

“Love you too Dip.” she replied happily.

* * *

_July 26th_

The conversation with his father went just slightly worse than Dipper might have expected, and considering how low his expectations had fallen that was saying quite a lot.

Things had started off fairly well - a casual greeting, a little small talk about the weather (it had rained lobsters just a week ago in Gravity Falls), a short story about a funny incident that happened at his fathers office & then just when things were getting friendly the news about Dipper’s future plans dropped into the middle of the conversation like a bowling ball slamming into a wedding cake.

After the initial burst of deafening yelling had died down there was a heavy silence that lurked over the conversation, broken only by the sound of his fathers breathing and the static distortion that always seemed to come over Dipper’s phone in this town.

 _Tension like this you can’t cut with a knife,_ Dipper thought somewhat lightheaded,  _you’d need a chainsaw at least._

“Alright, just let me try to understand this here son - you decided, for some reason, to pass up on all those grants you earned for your grades that would have practically paid your way through school, to do what exactly? Do you think that you’re just going to sit around the house all day watching TV or something - because you’ve got another thing coming if-” his father began, his voice rising once again in anger.

“No, that’s not what I’m thinking at all! C'mon dad, you know I’m not lazy… I just don’t think school is right for me, at least not right now anyway. I want to go out and see more of the world, not just the inside of a different bunch of classrooms in a new city.” Dipper protested.

“Where the hell did this even come from all of a sudden? Four years of high school and not a peep out of you about this crap and now that you’ve finally graduated you suddenly decide to become a dropout? If you wanted to disappoint me you could have at least been more punctual about it.” his father said incredulously.

“This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing… its been a long time coming, I just wasn’t totally sure about it till now. Anyway its already done and there’s no going back on it.” Dipper said.

“What the hell do you think you’re going to do with yourself if you don’t get a degree then? Its not like money just grows on trees!”

“Stan didn’t go to college and he gets along just fine.” Dipper objected.

“Stan is an ex-con running a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere!”

“Well he was good enough to take care of us wasn’t he? Hell, the fact that he lives out in the middle of nowhere and  _still_  manages to pull in busloads of tourists is pretty impressive.”

“That old man’s been a bad influence on you - I never should have let you guys head up to that creepy old town in the first place.”

“Coming to Gravity Falls is pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me! I never knew how  _weird_ the world was until I came here… its the whole reason that I want to go out and see the world instead of just letting it pass me by. I mean, I fought a bunch of zombies just a few weeks ago - where else would I get to do something like that?” Dipper asked.

“Zombies? Jesus, Dipper I thought you were done with all this bigfoot and aliens crap years ago. Hadn’t you already learned your lesson about it after all the trouble you had gotten into at school?”

“Yeah, thanks for not taking my side about that by the way - 13 year old me really appreciated getting thrown to the wolves.” Dipper said dryly.

“Well what was I supposed to do? What do you think is going to happen if you go around talking about a bunch of crazy shit like that? It was all I could do to keep you out of counseling.”

“I don’t know, I just had this crazy idea that maybe I might have gotten some open minded support?” Dipper said sarcastically.

“Either you pack your bags for school, or you pack them for whatever this idiotic road trip idea you have is - either way when fall comes around you aren’t staying in this house.” his father declared coldly.

“Fine.” Dipper said shortly, clicking the phone off as angrily as he could.

“Yeah, thats the problem with cell-phones - you can’t slam 'em good and hard like the old cord ones.” Stan said conversationally from the doorway as he cracked the tab of a can of generic brand cola.

Dipper spun around in surprise, having thought the room had been empty the whole time.

“How much of that had you heard?” Dipper asked worriedly.

“Enough to know that you’re probably in the dog-house pretty bad with your parents… or at least with your dad anyway.” Stan said as he walked into the kitchen and took a seat at the table, motioning Dipper over to one of the empty seats as he swigged his soda.

“That’s putting it mildly… I envy the dog house right now, it looks like a 5 star hotel compared to where I’m at.” Dipper said, slumping into his seat.

“Heh, I’ve been in a few places like that before. So, whats this whole deal about you not going to school? With brains like yours, I figured you’d probably want to use them for something.” Stan inquired mildly.

“Should I just start recording all my phone conversations for you?” Dipper asked sarcastically.

“It might save me some guesswork.” Stan grunted back.

“I don’t know… college just feels so  _ordinary_  compared to life here. I’m tired of ordinary - I did years of ordinary between my visits up here and the thought that I have to do  _ordinary_ for the rest of my life was just too depressing. I don’t want an ordinary life, I want to live my own way… see everything there is to see, especially the stuff that no one else even knows exists.” Dipper said honestly.

“Gonna be kind of hard to do that if your old man cuts you off isn’t it?” Stan asked.

“Well… yeah, I guess it would be… but you never had anyone helping you out when you were out in the world and you did alright.” Dipper said.

“Yeah, I guess so… I mean, if you count sleeping in ditches some nights and the occasional prison stretch between successes as alright.” Stan said.

“Guess I’ll just have to tough it out then.” Dipper said.

Stan gave Dipper a small nod and finished off the last of his soda, tossing the can idly toward the trash and grunting in annoyance when it failed to go in.

“I was right about you kid- you really have grown into your own man.” Stan said with a smile.

“So you think I made the right choice?” Dipper asked.

“Are you kidding? Giving up a bunch of free money from your folks to go sit in class and drink yourself stupid at parties for a hard life on the road… I’d say it wasn’t the brightest decision of your life.” Stan said with a chuckle.

“Oh.” Dipper said, feeling crestfallen.

“But the fact is that it was  _your_ choice kid. No one else gets to live your life for you - not me and not your dad. No one. You’ve only got one shot at life, so you might as well live it the way you want to.” Stan said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.” Dipper said, brightening slightly.

“Of course I’m right.” Stan said confidently, reaching out a large hand and slapping Dipper companionably on the back. Dipper winced in pain as his great uncles palm slammed hard against one of his more severe bruises but aside from the tears forming at the corner of his eyes he tried to give no indication of his discomfort.

“Thanks for taking my side Stan.” Dipper said.

“No problem kid… So are you going to be alone on this little journey of yours?” Stan asked casually.

“Um… no… Mabel wants to come too.” Dipper said slowly, worried about his great uncles reaction to that particular piece of news.

“Probably a good idea - you’re a bright guy but when it comes to street smarts that girl can think circles around you.” Stan said.

“You aren’t mad that I’m dragging her down with me or whatever?” Dipper asked.

“She’s got as much right to live her own life however she wants, same as you. If she wants to follow you around the country fighting ghosts or whatever then that’s her choice.” Stan said neutrally.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Dipper said.

“Still, she  _is_ my favorite niece though so if she’s going along too then I can’t let you guys go out into the wide world totally unprepared,” Stan said as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn leather billfold, counting out a small stack of large bills and sliding them across the table towards Dipper.

“Stan that’s a lot of money - there must be at least-” Dipper began, his eyes wide.

“Don’t tell me how much it is or I might change my mind,” Stan grunted out in an almost pained voice, averting his eyes from the cash, “Just take it already… think of it as a loan- you can pay me back when you guys get famous.”

Dipper slipped the bills into his own pocket quickly and Stan returned his gaze to the table with a look of relief on his face once the temptation had been removed.

“Thanks again Stan.” Dipper said.

“Don’t mention it kid… seriously, if you ever tell your parents I did that I will deny it up and down. Just take good care of yourselves out there, alright?” the old man said, his voice taking on a surprisingly caring tone.

“We will.” Dipper said, rising up from the table to find Mabel and let her know the news.

“And kid- if things don’t work out just remember you guys will always have a place here at the Shack… though I’ll expect you to work for it if it comes to that.” Stan said sternly.

“Looking forward to it - I’ve gotta protect my future investment after all.” Dipper said.

* * *

_August 15th  
_

It was Mabel who’d had the idea to document their adventures in something besides the pages of the replica Journal - on the night before they had set out on their trip she had dug through the old boxes piled high in the Shack’s attic until she had finally found the old camera that she and Dipper had played around with as kids and discovered to her surprise that it still worked.

She’d rushed to him excitedly and brandished the camera, squeaking out the world “Journalism!” with mad glee as her brother looked on in confusion.

“Its perfect Dip! Think about it - you want to go out and see all kinds of crazy junk & people really love watching videos about crazy junk from the comfort of their own home. I mean, if a kitten playing with a laser pointer can get a bajillion views on Youtube just think what the first recorded footage of a real live gnome or whatever could get.” Mabel said confidently.

“Sort of like those old 'Guide to the Unexplained’ videos we did when we were kids then?” Dipper asked, a huge surge of excitement dawning in his chest at the idea. Truthfully as the day had drawn closer for their journey he’d started to worry more and more about the financial situation, but Mabel might have just solved that problem.

“Yes, except this time I won’t tape over them with a Dreamboyz High marathon.” Mabel said.

“Mabel that’s absolutely genius! If we just throw a few ads on or something, maybe sell some t-shirts then we could actually do pretty good for ourselves…” Dipper mused, his mind turning toward the marketing situation.

“You’re getting more like Stan every day… its kind of disturbing.” Mabel joked, leaning in to kiss him warmly on the cheek.

“Where do you think we should go first? I’ve been hunting around through some old texts I found in the library stacks the other day and there might be some pretty promising things out in Washington state… or there’s this one town in Mexico where there are apparently almost weekly UFO sightings…” Dipper said, his brain racing as he tried to think of episode ideas or how to best format the show.

“How about we do a test run close to home… like that town we stopped at when we were first coming up here with the giant bird?” Mabel suggested.

“Yeah.. that sounds pretty good.” Dipper said happily.

“So, what should we call the show?” Mabel asked.

“I still think 'Dippers Guide to the Unexplained’ has a nice ring to it.”

“Nope - we’re partners here, and we’re splitting this 100% down the middle. We can take turns co-hosting it and stuff.” Mabel said.

“That’s fair… um… how about just 'The Guide to the Unexplained’ then?” Dipper suggested.

“Too dull… 'The Pines Guide to the Unexplained’?” Mabel said.

“Why not 'The Mystery Twins Guide to the Unexplained’?” Dipper said jokingly.

“I actually really like the sound of that.” Mabel said happily.

“Really? The Mystery Twins thing is so corny though.” Dipper said.

“Yeah, but so are you.” Mabel teased.

“I choose to take that as a compliment.” Dipper said.

Mabel leaned in and planted a warm kiss on Dippers lips that left no doubt in his mind that, corny or not, she was happy to be there with him… and that maybe she always would be.


	11. A Cabin Among the Pines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bonus fic that takes place following the conclusion of the main story.

The door of the old cabin creaked open slowly, its rusted hinges audibly protesting with each inch the door was moved. A puff of stale air blew out through the doorway, heavy with dust and a faint taste of decay that clung to the back of Dipper’s throat.

“Gosh Dip, you sure know how to pick the most romantic spots to take a girl,” Mabel said, her nose wrinkled slightly in distaste as she surveyed the dark interior of the wooden room.

“I’m not really sure what you had been expecting considering the fact that this place is supposedly haunted or cursed or something. People haven’t stayed here in quite a while.” Dipper muttered as he scanned the room, taking note of the strange disarray of the furniture.

Dark splotches marked the walls along the left hand side of the door, thin streaks of some unidentifiable substance that almost formed the shape of an outstretched hand standing out stark against the faded woodgrain. Wind whistled mournfully through a cracked pane of glass, lifting up small clouds of dust in its wake. Scuffed lines of white grit marked the small patch of empty floor in front of the ash choked fireplace. Dipper walked over slowly and knelt beside them, the sound of his footsteps seeming unnaturally faint and muffled considering the closeness of the walls.

Chalk lines. They look like they had been vigorously scrubbed out at some point, making their original design impossible to guess. The remains of an outline from some bygone police investigation, or clues to something far more sinister?

“Should I start filming already? This place really doesn’t look super-photogenic so far.” Mabel said, fiddling with the leather strap of the large bag hanging off her shoulder which contained the digital camera that the twins used to make their living.

Dipper shook his head and stood up, wiping the traces of dust from his hands onto the sides of his faded old jeans.

“It definitely looks like something ugly happened here a while back, but I’m not really sure if it would be something that we should use for an episode. Bigfoot, yes. Giant monster birds, definitely. Whatever messed up stuff happened here though… I don’t know, it seems a little disrespectful.” Dipper said uneasily, his eyes drifting back to the odd stain on the wall.

Looking at it from a new angle, he noted that the marks corresponding with fingers were far longer than any hand he’d seen before. Longer and spaced just slightly too far out of proportion.

“Well what are we even doing here if we aren’t going to be making a video?” Mabel asked, annoyance plain in her voice. She’d lost the coin toss earlier that morning and had been forced to drive Dipper’s finicky old sedan for hours through the winding country backroads while he napped in the passenger seat, and it had made her somewhat testy.

“Just because we aren’t going to be filming an episode today doesn’t mean that there isn’t a mystery that needs solving.” Dipper said distractedly, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the disconcerting stains.

“I guess this one’s going to be  _pro bueno_ or whatever the proper term is when we do this junk for free.” Mabel said with a sigh, gently setting the camera bag down at her feet.

“ _Pro bono,_  and I think that term would only apply if we were lawyers,” Dipper replied.

“Grunkle Stan would be so disappointed in you for not trying to make a buck off this though,” Mabel said with mock sternness, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

“We can leave this part out when we send him the monthly postcard - anyway I think he’d be more than impressed with our progress considering that we were able to pay rent last month with the profit from our t-shirt sales alone.” Dipper said.

“That’s not too hard considering how cheap the rent is at our place,” Mabel said, “but it  _is_  nice to finally not have to resort to scams and tricks to get by anymore.”

“Pfft, and you say  _I’m_  the one Stan would be ashamed of,” Dipper said with a smirk.

Mabel responded by playfully sticking her tongue out at her brother and waggling a hand at him dismissively and he rolled his eyes at her in turn, but the grin stayed on his face. He stepped in closer towards Mabel and cupped her chin in his hand, raising her face up to meet his eyes and then bent low to plant a quick kiss on her lips in place of an apology for teasing her. Though Dipper had intended for the kiss to be nothing more than a quick peck Mabel had ideas of her own, catching the lapels of his old canvas jacket tight in her hand and standing on tiptoes to press her mouth firmly against his own. He responded eagerly to the kiss, slipping his arms around Mabel’s back and running his hands down the curve of her spine as she hummed appreciatively into his mouth.

The kiss broke, and Dipper felt a contented grin start to spread its way across his face. Even now, years after the two had taken their first hesitant steps to acknowledging their feelings for one another, Dipper always felt like the luckiest guy in the world just after he had felt those soft lips against his.

Mabel met her brother’s satisfied expression with a more mischievous grin of her own and then presented Dipper his own wallet back to him with a flourish, like a magician unveiling a new trick. Dipper’s eyebrows raised and he quickly patted his pocket only to find it empty, and he accepted the wallet back from Mabel’s outstretched hand with a grunt.

“Even if I don't  _want_ to make my living scamming people, I can still think of a few reasons why I’m that loveable old coots favorite,” Mabel said teasingly.

“I’m pretty sure that trick wasn’t something that Stan ever showed you,” Dipper replied dryly.

“Well, the pickpocketing part yes - the kiss was something I added in to jazz it up a bit and give it some of that patented Mabel flair!” she said with a cocky grin.

A gust of wind suddenly whistled hard through the cracked windowpane of the cabin and the old boards groaned loudly, as if in pain. Mabel’s grin turned to a sour frown as she looked around the dismal room once again.

“This place is grosser than I imagined it would be when you said we were going to be taking a trip out to a lakeside cabin,” she grumbled.

Dipper reached out and ran a soothing hand along Mabel’s back, massaging gently around her neck and shoulders.

“We probably won’t be here for too long. You know most of these ‘haunted’ places turn out to be a bust, but if it’s real then it will have been worth the drive,” Dipper said.

Mabel reached her hand up and laid it over Dipper’s, her fingers giving it a small squeeze.

“Yeah, I know… but I get to pick the site of our next road trip.” she said firmly.

“Is it going to be Disneyland again?” Dipper asked.

“Well we never  _really_  uncovered whether the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion ride were real or not, so I think its still worth taking another look.” Mabel said in a questioning tone of voice.

“They were fake Mabel. They were also fake the other time we went.” Dipper replied with a smile.

“Third times the charm.” Mabel said.

* * *

It was Mabel who discovered the false floorboards in the cabins bedroom, a trapdoor concealed beneath an ancient bearskin rug that had glared up at her with dull glass eyes. Dipper insisted on going down the rickety stairs first, and the flashlight held loosely in his hand swept over the small hidden room sunk deep into the earth to reveal its secrets.

The walls were made from large blocks of rough brown stone, crudely cut and inexpertly mortared together. A large heavily built wooden table was the central feature of the chamber, piled high with papers and various odds and ends. A cabinet stood against the back wall, its doors flung carelessly open. Dippers flashlight beam swept over the shelves and gleamed off the surface of a number of dusty glass bottles and jars full of dull amber colored fluid. Vaguely organic shapes floated within the jars, their details concealed by shadows. Dipper noted, with a grimace, that the wall opposite from the cabinet and table had several heavy metal staples bolted into it and that rusted iron chains dangled from them. Small white shapes littered the floor around the chains, mostly splinters and slivers but there were still a few largely intact pieces that confirmed Dippers suspicion that they had once been bones.

“So what do you think - is this a genuine mystery or just regular basement junk?” Mabel called from the bedroom above.

“I’m guessing the reports and stories about this place were probably true,” Dipper called back as he walked over toward the table and started to take a closer look at its contents.

The clutter mostly seemed to be papers of some sort, covered in densely packed lines of handwriting. The top layer of papers were spattered with dry brown stains. Shuffling some of the papers aside revealed a book, no larger than a paperback novel, which was bound in tanned leather. Its surface was puckered and wrinkled almost like tree bark but despite the chokingly dry air in the room it felt somehow clammy to the touch. When Dipper ran his fingertips over the cover he could almost swear that he heard a faint whisper at the back of his head… unintelligible words that seemed somehow tantalizing in their vagueness.

“How bad is it down there?” Mabel shouted down.

Dipper shook his head and glared suspiciously down at the book.

“Pretty bad,” Dipper called back up.

“Werewolf lair bad?” Mabel called down.

Dipper gave the room another once over and stroked his chin speculatively.

“No, not  _that_  bad. Still pretty gross though.” Dipper said, his eyes drawn back to the book in his hand.

“Alright, get your butt back up here then so we can figure out what to do,” Mabel called down.

Dipper started back toward the stairs and stopped himself just before he started to ascend. He looked down at his hand and saw that he was still holding the strange clammy book, despite having been  _sure_ that he had left it on the table. He frowned and gritted his teeth, his fingers reluctantly opening to drop the book at his feet where he kicked it aside, away from the stairs and back toward the table. Dipper could  _feel_ a vicious silent growl in the back of his mind when the book slid across the earthen floor and slammed into the leg of the old table.

The trapdoor slammed shut and the room was left in darkness once again. A sound like the fluttering of wings broke the silence, the dry rustle of paper scraping against paper.

* * *

Mabel set the camera up on its tripod in the cabins living room, adjusting the angle of the shot carefully before she gave the “all ready” thumbs up to Dipper. It hadn’t taken much convincing to get him to agree to shoot just a short segment for their channel - more of a PSA than a full episode.

A fire crackled merrily in the hearth and Dipper stood in front of it holding a pair of heavy iron tongs in his hands at arms length away from his body, the metal pincers gripping the leathery book from the hidden basement. The surface of the leather seemed to squirm and writhe, though it was unclear whether it was simply from the firelight casting strange shadows on its surface or not.

“Are we rolling?” Dipper asked, feeling his heartbeat quicken when Mabel gave a nod of confirmation.

“Hey guys, this is Dipper here with a friendly reminder for all of you who are going to be taking your summer vacations soon. Most of you are going to have a pretty normal time hanging out with your friends or hitting the beach or whatever, but every year there’s always an unlucky few who get invited to hang out at some creepy old spot in the woods that has a shady local reputation. This doesn’t have to turn out badly though as long as you remember to take some simple precautions -”

Dipper gestured toward the book grasped firmly in the fireplace tongs, now definitely shaking and jerking about, its pages rustling between its covers with a noise like a hissing snake.

“-the most important one being this: if you find a secret room, or a hidden shed or a concealed basement or whatever: don’t go inside it. This is basic stuff, people. Just board it up, forget that it’s there and enjoy the rest of your summer. If you DO go in though then remember the second most important rule - immediately destroy any really weird or creepy things you find down there  _before_ one of your idiot friends tries to read from it out loud or spills their blood all over it or something equally dumb. Fire usually does the trick very well for this job, its pretty much a universal cleanser.”

With that Dipper lobbed the nightmarish journal into the heart of the flames. Mabel zoomed in as the squirming leather cover began to twist and shift, ridges and puckers and whorls of texture forming into a shape like a screaming face. The fire flared up high and hot, its edges tinged with flashes of blue and gold light. Thick clouds of choking smoke billowed out up through the chimney and with an unholy shrieking noise the book crumbled to ash. In an instant the strange gloomy shadow that had hung over the cabin like a shroud was gone.

“See? The place is already like, 30% less creepy.” Dipper said brightly.

“Like magic!” Mabel chimed in from behind the camera.

“Or better yet, like  _not_ doing magic - especially when it comes from demonic old books that try to talk to you or whisper in your brain.” Dipper replied before turning back to face the camera once again. “Just remember to follow those few simple rules and you guys should have a great and monster-free summer! This has been a public service announcement brought to you by the Mystery Twins!”

Mabel swung the camera around to her face and flashed it a thousand-watt smile.

“For more life-saving tips like these be sure to check out the rest of our channel - and while you’re there maybe you can click on one of those handy links on the bottom and buy some merch!” Mabel said brightly.

“Mabel!” Dipper groaned.

“What? Money doesn’t grow on trees. This is what we do!” Mabel said cheerfully before snapping the camera off.

She set the camera down on a nearby table and flashed Dipper a quick smile which he returned.

“How did I do? I always feel weird talking directly to the camera like that,” Dipper asked.

“You were a little sweaty, but we can probably fix it in post once I mess with the lighting.” Mabel said as she dug a laptop out from her heavy leather satchel and plugged the camera into it to begin extracting the video for editing.

Dipper turned back to the fireplace and began feeding the stacks of papers from the basement into it. There was no strange burst of magic light or unholy screaming as these were destroyed, but it never hurt to be cautious. Who knows what the original owner of the basement may have copied down from that book?

“I guess if we’re done here then we can head back home once I finish burning these. After we board up the basement for good of course.” Dipper said.

Mabel turned to Dipper from her seat at the table, a speculative look on her face.

“Do we have to go already?” she asked.

“I thought you wanted out of this place as soon as possible?” Dipper asked, mildly surprised by her question.

“Well that was before we de-spookified it. Now I’m thinking it might be fun to spend some time here… I mean, the woods are really pretty in this area and the lake nearby looks like its perfect for swimming.” Mabel said wistfully.

Dipper paused in thought. It had been a while since they’d taken a real vacation - even if they didn’t exactly have regular 9 to 5 office jobs it was still a lot of work to be constantly researching new phenomena to go film, not to mention the tedious effort of editing together their videos. A week or two away from their 'job’ couldn’t hurt… plus he was almost certain that Mabel hadn’t packed any of her vacation clothes and that probably meant skinny dipping if they were going to be spending time by the lake, something that he was never opposed to.

“Alright, that sounds like fun actually,” Dipper agreed, “just as soon as we double check this place for any other little nightmarish surprises.”

“Way ahead of you bro beau - I already broke the creepy old tape deck I found in the bedroom and unwound all the tapes. Especially the ones that had all kinds of weird writing on them in permanent marker.” Mabel said.

“I love you Mabel Pines” Dipper said with a warm smile.

“Love you too Dippingsauce,”


	12. Love Isn't for Suckers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bonus fic that takes place following the main story.

Blood red lips seemed to fill Dipper’s whole world, with flashes of teeth like small ivory knives appearing between them as the woman’s mouth moved in speech. Something about those teeth didn’t seem to feel right, but the stray thought quickly faded from his mind. His dazed ears couldn’t quite understand the words that were being spoken, but the tone of the voice was soothing and he felt his panic-driven heartbeat slow to a sluggish crawl in his chest as the gentle voice caressed his mind.

**There’s nothing to worry about.**

_What was I so worried about anyway?_ , he thought to himself.

**Don’t panic.**

_There’s no reason for me to be worrying like this, right?_

The world grew dim, fading into clouded grey shadows except for those lips.

**You’re safe.**

_I mean, I’m totally safe here._

**Just relax.**

Dipper felt his arms drop to his sides and he heard a clatter as something fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

What had he been holding again? It sounded wooden…

**It doesn’t matter.**

_Yeah… it really doesn't…_

Something wasn’t right.

_What was it though?_

**Forget about it.**

_Something wooden?_

_I swear this seems like it was important…_

Some nagging voice in the back of Dippers mind forced its way through the fog of calm.

_Wooden… Steak… wooden steak? That doesn’t make any sense, who would carve a steak out of wood?_

**Calm down.**

_Wooden steak?_

_Steak?_

_No… stake._

**Shut up!**

_Wooden stake._

_Vampire._

_Crap! We were hunting a vampire…_

**Relax damn it!**

Dipper felt the veil of calmness that had settled over his mind start to fray and dissolve as an all-too-familiar panic began to set in once again.

_I can’t just stand here like this! I have to move!_

**You aren’t going anywhere.**

Dipper’s body felt like a clumsily manipulated puppet, his arms hanging limp at his sides and his head lolling uselessly around on his neck but his eyes were locked on the hypnotically moving lips. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t force his body to move an inch… even twitching an eyelid seemed to be beyond his control now as he felt the spell of her voice,  _its'_ voice pinning him down.

_No… this is not going to happen!_

**This will go a lot easier if you just sit still and accept it.**

_Screw you!_

Dippers’ muscles  _burned_  as he forced his eyes closed and took a step back. His whole body felt like it was moving through molasses, tendons straining painfully against bone as Dippers’ legs fought against his own commands. With a grunt he managed to give his aching head a vicious shake and he felt the gentle tug of the voice in his mind vanish. All at once the pressure holding his limbs in place was suddenly gone and he almost stumbled from the bizarre sensation of life returning to his numbed nerves. Dipper forced his eyes open again and saw a tall figure standing with her arms crossed in front of her chest, her face illuminated by the yellow glow from the old gas-lamps burning on the walls.

It was a face full of harsh lines and angles, but still somehow beautiful despite its predatory appearance – his eyes traveled from the knife-sharp cheekbones to the large, almost catlike, eyes beneath arched brows & finally came once more to the pair of blood red lips that stood out from the chalk white pallor of its skin like an open wound. Those lips were currently quirked just slightly upward in an expression of amused contempt.

“You’ve got a pretty strong brain there darling,” she said, “most guys can’t break free when I’ve already started on the whole ’ _everything’s fine, now just sit still and let me eat you’_  routine.”

Dipper was slightly surprised to find that the undead monster trying to dominate his mind had an extremely thick southern accent.

_Huh… I guess I kind of expected her to sound more… I dunno… ‘old country?’_

_Is that racist of me? Do vampires even count as a race?_

_Wait, why am I even thinking of that right now? Get the stake idiot!_

Dippers eyes darted toward the wooden dagger that he had dropped on the floor during his earlier daze, but before he could make a dive for it the vampire was moving, her entire body seeming to blur as she darted toward him. Dipper tensed and tried to step aside but wasn’t fast enough to avoid a stinging slap across his face that was delivered with enough force to bring stars of pain to his eyes and drive him to his knees.

Dazed, Dipper could only watch as the vampire bent down and picked up the dropped stake, tossing it idly in her hand a few times before she threw it hard behind her through the glass pane of a nearby window and far out of his reach.

“You could have done this the easy way and just let me hypnotize you so that I could have my dinner in peace,” she said in a disappointed voice, “but now we’ve got to do it the hard way where I have to start breaking your bones and beating you till you can’t move and  _then_ have my dinner. I  _hate_ the hard way… I always end up ruining my nice clothes.”

“Or,” Dipper said as he held his hands out in a placating gesture, “and hear me out here, I’m just thinking out loud, you  _don't_ eat me and we forget about this whole thing? I mean, look at me – I’m really stringy and I …um… I do  _so_ many drugs that my blood probably tastes pretty terrible. Like expired ketchup dumped in a barroom ashtray.”

To Dipper’s surprise the vampire gave a sort of snorting giggle at his plea and tilted her head, a strange glow seeming to burn from behind her eyes as she looked him up and down speculatively.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of cute when you get all terrified like that?” she purred.

“I may have heard it mentioned once or twice,” Dipper muttered, recalling Mabel having said almost the exact same thing the last time she’d startled him awake.

“You know, I don’t really  _have_  to kill you… this doesn’t even have to be unpleasant for you if you don’t put up a struggle,” the vampire said in a soothing voice, inching closer toward him.

“Having my blood drained seems like it could get  _pretty_ unpleasant though,” Dipper answered in as calm a voice as he could manage, awkwardly shuffling crabwise across the floor as he backed himself over toward the doorway.

“I’m sure I could find some way to distract you enough that you wouldn’t even notice me doing it,” the vampire said in a playful sing-song voice, “it would be just like getting a little ol’ love bite, or a really big hickey,”

Dipper winced slightly recalling some of the more enthusiastic bites that Mabel had left on his shoulder and neck in the past. She always called him a wimp whenever he complained about them afterward, playfully pointing out that they couldn’t have hurt  _that_ bad if he hadn’t objected when she was putting them on him in the first place.

_Mabel._

_I think she came in here after me… She did! That was the plan we’d made…_

_I hope she’s nearby… I’m not sure how much longer I can hold this thing off._

“I’m not sure I know you well enough for hickeys yet,” Dipper said, shooting quick sidelong glances at the door.

_Anytime now sis!_

“Why wait? Life is short,” the vampire replied.

Dipper cocked an eyebrow at her questioningly at the remark.

“For some of us anyway,” she corrected herself with a shrug, “besides, you’re no Bela Lugosi but you’re kind of cute in a way…”

“Listen lady, I am extremely flattered,” Dipper stammered out, “but I’m seeing someone right now and it’s pretty serious and being killed and/or sleeping with you would probably put a major damper on my relationship.”

“I don’t see any rings on your finger,” the vampire said, her outline blurring as she closed the gap between them and was suddenly beside Dipper.

A small delicately manicured hand pressed firmly against his chest, pinning him to the floor as surely as if someone had just parked a truck on him. Long nails scratched teasingly at his chest through his shirt, and he suppressed a shiver from the ice cold feel of the creatures flesh against his even through his clothes.

“Well, what’s it going to be – the easy way or the hard way?” the vampire whispered into his ear, her lifeless breath like a chill puff of winter air that made the seductive tone of her voice into something strange and terrifying.

“They both seem pretty hard to me,” Dipper blurted out, not sure of how to answer her in a way that wouldn’t involve bleeding.

The vampire gave another giggle as she shot him a saucy smirk and after a beat Dipper realized what he’d just said.

“Wait! That was  _not_ innuendo!” Dipper stammered, feeling his ears start to redden and burn.

The vampire’s delicate fingers tangled into Dippers hair and gently tugged his head to the side, exposing his throat and though he struggled he couldn’t budge the cold dead limbs pinning him down even an inch. He shuddered as he felt the cold touch of its long pointed tongue dragging up from his collarbone to his ear. Teeth like dagger points nibbled gently on the lobe of his ear, not quite piercing the skin. He shivered, but whether it was from fear or something else equally primal he wasn’t sure. The icy wind of the creature’s voice whispered into his ear once more,

“You are just  _precious_ … I think I might even keep you for a while,”

Despite the fear that was knotting up Dipper’s gut he felt his heart start to speed up from the pressure of her flesh against his as she leaned down over him, one long ivory-pale leg moving up to straddle him and gently rest her weight on his body.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to go on a date or something first at least? I’m an old fashioned kind of guy,” Dipper joked nervously.

“Honey I’m 180 years old – I know old fashioned like you couldn’t begin to imagine,” the vampire said as she stroked a claw-like fingernail gently along his lightly stubbled jawline.

“I kind of have a bad track record with older women,” Dipper said, squirming under her touch.

The vampire seemed like she was going to make a reply when the door to the room suddenly slammed open loudly and the creature leaped off him with the grace and speed of a startled cat, clinging high onto the far wall of the room with hands that now seemed almost spidery and gnarled compared to the delicate fingers that had been caressing Dipper’s face just moments before.

Breathing a sigh of relief Dipper scuttled to his feet and joined Mabel at the doorway. His sister stood with her hands on her hips and a hard glare on her normally smiling face, brown eyes staring daggers at the creature perched in defiance of gravity near the ceiling.

“Hands off my boyfriend worm-bait.” Mabel snapped, trying to scrunch her face up into her idea of a fierce scowl which unfortunately looked more constipated than intimidating.

After the initial surprise the vampire made to recover her poise, clambering down from the wall to the floor with frightening speed. Her full lips twisted up into a wide predatory grin, canines gleaming wet in the dim light as she ran her tongue across them theatrically.

“This must be my lucky night – two meals come walking in all on their own. I might even have enough for leftovers.”

Mabel’s hand inched slowly toward her waist where a colorful belt full of knitted pouches hung low off her hips. Her fingers slid carefully inside one of the small woolen bags as she kept her eyes fixed on the vampire.

“Well I couldn’t let you start your dinner yet without the right SPICES!” Mabel said, shouting the last word triumphantly as she hurled a handful of powdery dust from the pouch directly into the creatures face.

The vampire recoiled, hands clawing at the air and gagging as it stumbled against the wall. After a confused moment the creature straightened up and glanced down at its hands.

“What the hell is this? Glitter?” the vampire asked incredulously, wiping sparkling flakes of color from out of its eyes.

Mabel glanced down at the pouch at her waist and slapped her glitter-dusted palm to her forehead.

“Awww man - I even said a cool line and everything! Stupid utility belt! Whose dumb idea was it to wear these anyway?” she groaned.

Dipper shot a questioning glance at her.

“That was just my emergency glitter,” Mabel said sheepishly as she dug around through the remaining pouches until she found what she had been seeking with a triumphant 'Aha!’

“Who the fuck carries emergency-” the vampire began to say before a fistful of hastily thrown garlic salt caught it full in the mouth, causing it to burst into an unholy shriek as thick yellow smoke poured out from between its rapidly bruising lips.

Razor-thin lines of electric blue flame limned across its face in an irregular spiderweb pattern, ivory skin fragmenting off like chips of porcelain to reveal a core of thick tarry ooze that ignited with cold fire when it touched the air. Dipper grabbed Mabel and pulled her behind him protectively as the burning creature took a single lurching step toward them before it dropped to the floor, scrabbling and shuddering as if it were in the middle of a seizure. Wood and plaster splintered under the convulsive blows of its flailing limbs and the air hummed with the almost inaudible whine of its dying wail.

“Finish it?” Mabel asked, a touch of sympathy creeping into her voice. Undead monster or not, she couldn’t stand the sight of a creature in pain.

Neither could Dipper most of the time & he grimaced and nodded in agreement.

“The chopper,” he said.

Dipper held out his hand toward Mabel, and with practiced efficiency she handed him an old machete from out of the bright purple backpack she wore slung over her left shoulder. It’s slightly nicked blade was traced along with a number of strange squirming symbols and fragments of old spells that Dipper had picked up during their years on the road to make the once humble gardening tool into something far more dangerous than it already was. He noted with some slight exasperation that Mabel had apparently added a few cartoonish designs of her own etched into the metal, and that she had also found the time to decorate the handle with a preposterous number of sequins and costume gems since the last time he’d been forced to use it.

Garish or not, the blade should still do its job. He swung once, hard, and felt the edge shear through the burning brittle neck and bite deep into the wood of the floorboards. Icy sparks of burning cold flared out to hiss against his skin but he brushed them off with only a slight wince. With the head severed the cold fire died completely and what was left of the body began to melt like a pool of thick oil into the floor, rapidly shrinking away to nothing as if the creature had never existed in the first place. Dipper carefully wiped the blade clean on the frayed old curtains by the broken window before handing it back to Mabel.

“Well, looks like that’s finally taken care of,” Dipper said. He felt the days aches begin to catch up with him now that the adrenalin was starting to wear off.

“Do you think we should have recorded that?” Mabel asked as she re-sheathed the machete and slipped it back into the backpack.

“I don’t think a video of us setting what looked like a woman on fire and then decapitating it would have made us too popular with our fans,” Dipper said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Mabel said.

“What took you so long to get here anyway? Did you get turned around searching the other rooms?” Dipper groused as his fingers delicately probed the bruise along his jaw where the vampire had slapped him earlier.

“No - I was just waiting for the right moment. If I came in too early she might have heard me coming,” Mabel explained.

“Cutting it kind of close there near the end weren’t you?” Dipper said, rubbing his neck with a slight grimace as he remembered the feel of the creatures cold dead breath against his skin.

“I knew you would be able to find a way to keep her distracted till I got there,” Mabel said.

“I appreciate the confidence,” Dipper said with a slight hint of pride,“but maybe next time lets play it a little safer,”

“Speaking of distractions- was it just my imagination or were you flirting with that vampire lady right before I got here?” Mabel asked teasingly.

“What? No!” Dipper said, his voice sharp and defensive.

“Are you sure about that? Because some of that sounded like genuine playful banter before I kicked in the door there,” Mabel said, poking him gently in the chest.

“I was trying to keep her mind off of killing me till you showed up,” Dipper said.

“So that’s what the kids are calling it these days huh?” Mabel replied, giving him a too-obvious wink.

“You aren’t mad or anything are you?” Dipper asked, not quite sure what to make of Mabel’s odd tone of voice.

“Well, not  _mad_  but maybe slightly jealous,” Mabel said with a sniff.

“I told you, I was just trying to distract her!” Dipper objected.

“Not jealous about  _that_  you goofball - I know you wouldn’t ever cheat on me,” she said as she leaned in to give him a reassuring peck on the cheek.

Dipper quirked an eyebrow at her in confusion.

“Alright, so then what were you jealous about?” he asked.

Mabel crossed her arms and her face screwed up slightly into a pout.

“Well, how come all the guy vampires we’ve found are nasty bat-monsters that try to eat my face, but the  **one**  time we run into a girl vampire she looks like a goth fashion model?” she asked rhetorically.

“I dunno, maybe they’re a different species or something? She seemed to react a lot more violently to the garlic than that guy vampire we fought a few years back,” Dipper said with a shrug.

“Maybe so, but that’s still just plain unfair though! The only monsters that ever hit on me were some gross little gnomes, but you suddenly have Countess kissy-fangs crawling all over you?” Mabel grumbled.

“Mabel being hit on by dead people is your fantasy, not mine – I could have done without all the attention from the unholy blood drinking lady-corpse.” Dipper said.

“Alright, lets just agree to disagree on the whole vampire thing… Still, it looks like my ’ _idiotic_ ’ plan to use you as bait ended up working out alright after all,” Mabel said with a self-satisfied nod.

“I still don’t see why you ever thought that was going to work,” Dipper said.

“C'mon Dip, what vampire in her right mind could resist a piece of man-candy like you?” Mabel said as she reached out to playfully squeeze Dipper’s bicep.

“I can never tell when you’re being serious or just messing with me,” Dipper said.

“Take a guess,” Mabel replied before she leaned in toward him, her arms sliding possessively around his neck to tug him into a kiss.

Dipper decided to just relax and enjoy the moment, forgetting his aches once again as he felt the soft pressure of Mabel’s jaw working against his, her own small white teeth nibbling gently against his lips as she sighed into the kiss. There was just something about the relief of tension after a close brush with danger that made Dipper want to crush Mabel to his chest and not let go, and he gave in to that impulse now as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. She hummed approvingly into his mouth and slid her own hands up Dipper’s back, the blunted points of her finger nails tracing a spine-tingling trail up toward his neck to tangle roughly into his hair. On an impulse Dipper’s lips broke contact with Mabel’s and he brought them down to the side of her neck, giving the sensitive skin a quick lick before he clamped his teeth down and sucked gently, driving a low moan out from her throat.

Mabel’s fingers gripped hard on Dipper’s hair and jerked him off her neck to lock her eyes with his. The raw energy in her gaze mirrored his and when she spoke there was a husky note in her voice that seemed to flip all the right switches in the most primal parts of Dipper’s brain,

“Okay, either we go back to the hotel  _right now_  or you’re going to have to do me in this creepy room, your choice,” she said.

Dipper glanced down at the tarry puddle staining the floor where the vampire had lain just moments before and felt a bolt of disgust that managed to cut through the lust that had almost overwhelmed him.

“Hotel room,” he said.


End file.
